Exams for Akatsuki
by Epic Victorr
Summary: Akatsuki may be S-ranked criminals, but due to their status as missing-nin, they are technically still mere Genin! Disgusted by the fact, Pein assigns the members to participate in the Chunin Exams. Sasuke & Rookie 9 also take the Exam at the same time...
1. Surprise Exam

OK, so this is my first AKATSUKI fan fic...I hope you enjoy it! I'll be constantly updating it, btw. Read & Review, please!

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"Listen up"! Pein bellowed loudly. The Akatsuki leader was sitting on a throne-like chair on a raised platform, facing the assembled members of the organization. The meeting was being held in a large, circular room lit only by blazing torches lined on the stone walls. Naturally, the Akatsuki members were impatient and unwilling to stay still. Pein was exhausted as he stared down from his throne; only three members had gathered so far. Screams and laughter echoed down the open door, coming from the hallway.

"Why'd you call us here?" Kisame Hoshigaki demanded. He held his great sword, Samehada, in his left hand.

"Yeah, why, un?" Deidara inquired. The fourth person in the room, Itachi Uchiha, stood silently, his handsome face darkened by some dark thought. Pein looked down at the three members in anger.

"Just proves my point," Pein grunted quietly. He raised his voice. "Well, Kisame, let's wait for your other comrades to arrive first, shall we?"

Kisame grumbled but obeyed his superior. It was then that the closed door was bashed open; it slammed onto the polished floor and cracked into splinters. Tobi came running in as fast as his legs could take him. Behind him, Hidan the Jashinist propelled into the room, clutching his wicked scythe in one hand. His face was twisted in an expression of hatred and his eyes were burning with a passion to kill. Kakuzu the money-loving bounty hunter, Konan the paper-nin, Zetsu the cannibal, and Sasori of the Red Sand strode in silently after the screaming Hidan. They assembled quietly behind the three earlier arrivals while Tobi dashed behind a stone pillar.

"YOU...TOBI...DIE..." Hidan growled in unmasked rage.

Pein groaned. "What happened? And, calm down, please, Hidan."

Hidan pointed a shaking finger at the shivering Tobi. "That masked fool stole my damn Jashin bible earlier! How dare he touch the sacred book of Jashin-sama....I'll have his head for this!" With that, Hidan charged forward rapidly and slashed his scythe at Tobi, who ducked out of the way. He landed beside Pein himself.

"Save me, leader!" Tobi gasped. Hidan approached the shivering Akatsuki member, holding his scythe poised for the kill. Thankfully, Pein stopped the bloodthirsty Jashinist in time.

"Now, Hidan, you really gotta calm down," Pein ordered menacingly. "I've got a really important announcement to make."

"But...I'll kill him....asshole Tobi..."

"Save that for later, will you? Go sit down like the rest of your comrades."

Hidan and Tobi headed down to stand behind Kakuzu and Zetsu. However, they kept a fair distance apart from each other, with Hidan shooting constant death-glares at Tobi. His hand twitched with anticipation, while his other hand still gripped his deadly scythe tightly. Tobi, meanwhile, was looking straight at Pein.

"Aah...finally...now, I know you will be shocked when I tell you this. But no matter. Anyway...I FIND YOUR LACK OF DISCIPLINE VERY ANNOYING!" Pein bellowed loudly.

Itachi sighed. Did that orange-haired freak finally lose his calm personality?

"I find your performances way below my expectations. Not to mention the fact that you ALL deserted your respective villages at a young age," Pein continued. He was about to speak some more when Sasori raised his hand. The Akatsuki leader glared down at Sasori. "Yes?"

"I left simply because my village stunk," Sasori protested. "I hated living in a stinkhole of a desert, the temperature was horrible, not to mention my body wasn't suited for such conditions! I had to resort to living inside Hiruko's air-conditioned body!"

"Oh, shut up, Sasori," Pein groaned. "Let me continue, will you? Anyway, back to my speech. Me, personally, actually isn't surprised about your current performances. You want to know why?"

Kisame gripped his Samehada sword tighter. Deidara actually took his hands out of his ears when he saw Itachi looking at Pein with a look of curiousity on his face.

"All right, here goes nothing," Pein said to himself. He raised his voice again. "Well, I hate to tell you this, but even though you're way stronger, you can't ignore the disturbing fact that you're all just...mere....GENIN!"

Kakuzu gasped, his gasp muffled by his facemask. Hidan's eyes bulged out. Deidara's mouth dropped open as he glared at Pein. Actually, the mouths on his hands and chest did, too; their slimy tongues slipped out, dropping the clay they were munching on onto the floor. Tobi shook his head in utter surprise. Itachi, meanwhile, stood silently in the midst of his comrades; he was confused about something. Pein glared down at them all when he noticed their reactions.

"You're all technically just Genin," he sneered. "No offense, anyway, but me and Konan are qualified for Hokage-level already. Y'all have demonstrated great techniques, but you can't ignore the fact that you have Genin written all over your face. That is why I have taken the liberty of signing you all up for the next Chunin Exams!"

"WHAT?" Hidan howled. "That's unfair! I ain't gonna take no shitty exam! Jashin-sama would be disgraced!"

"Do you get prize money from it?" Kakuzu demanded, his face brightening with the idea of winning cash. "How much?"

"Heheheh." white Zetsu hissed. "I bet there's gonna be some meat there. I've always enjoyed meat of the young."

"Oh, shut up!" Pein bellowed. "Let me finish! The three man teams are as follows: Hidan, Tobi, and Kisame; Itachi, Deidara, and Zetsu; I seem to be short on one member, so I suppose Sasori, you'll have to go with Kakuzu and one of your human puppets, preferbly Hiruko in full Akatsuki cloak. Are you satisfied with your teams? You can complain, but I won't change anything."

Sasori nodded lazily. "Sure thing, leader. Hiruko was a human after all."

Deidara shook his hands in rage. Surely Pein had done this on purpose just to annoy him for the fun of it, pairing him up with Itachi Uchiha, his worst nemesis. He was going to fail this exam with Itachi by his side.

Itachi did not notice his new teammate glaring at him with hatred. Did Pein forget that he WAS an ANBU captain before he ditched Konoha? Well, he was going to go through that tiring exam again just for the fun of it. Plus, he'll wipe those smirks off all of Deidara's mouths in the written exam by answering all of them without cheating. It'll be fun to see how his former villagers react to seeing him participate in the exam. _Who knows, I might just ace the Forest of Death in less than an hour! _

"I never study, though," Hidan groaned. "Just my luck; brainy boy Itachi isn't on my team. Jashin-sama, grant me a safe passage through this damn ordeal!" He raised his hands high, but his eyes were locked on Tobi's back. He heard that there was going to be one-on-one battles in the exam. He raised his eyes to the heavens again. _Jashin-sama, another favor to request. Please pair me with Tobi when the one-on-one matches begin, so I can kick his ass!_

"SHUT UP!" Pein commanded menacingly. The Akatsuki members stopped and glanced at Pein. The leader noticed each of them baring different expressions; Deidara glaring at him with such hatred that he could not stand looking at the former terrorist bomber. Genin were so unpredictable.

"All right!" Pein roared. He couldn't wait to watch his missing-nin Genins take on all the other Genin from Konoha who sucked. "To KONOHA!"

Meanwhile, yet another missing-nin was being sent to the Chunin Exams. His Sharingan glared devillishly at any nearby shinobi, and a katana sword was sheathed at his belt. Sasuke Uchiha stepped in front of the gates to Konohagakure. His two other teammates followed him quietly, and Sasuke nodded at them to enter the village. The Uchiha was home.

**More to come! This is gonna be interesting; I've got some ideas already...**


	2. Controversy and Writing

Ok, so, the Akatsuki haven't attacked or attempted to capture any of the Jinchuuriki yet. So, most of the ninjas in Leaf don't recognize them yet. Just a note.

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Eight cloaked men and one cloaked puppet walked slowly up the flat road to the leaf village, Konohagakure. The looming, red gates to the hidden village of the leaf stood right in front of them, its closed gates beckoning yet terrifying, in an academic way. The eight men and one puppet strode briskly forward and stopped inches from the gates. The sun was shining brightly in the sky even after Pein's original outburst of anger, and the rays shone upon the men's cloaks. At Pein's suggestion, they had switched their Akatsuki cloaks for normal hooded black cloaks to hide their identity. Also, the Akatsuki members all wore the forehead protector of Amegakure on their foreheads.

"Happy to be home, Itachi Uchiha, un?" Deidara demanded. "If you are, you're a pussy," the artist added under his breath.

"Hn," Itachi mumbled, not paying attention.

Deidara was heavily annoyed by this. His eternal rival was ignoring him completely! "Uchiha…"

"Drop it, gender bender," Kisame Hoshigaki snarled, stepping in between the two teammates. He raised Samehada threateningly. Sharp spikes burst out of the bandaged sword as Deidara tried to step forward, stopping the bomber-artist in his tracks.

"All right, all right," Deidara grumbled, glaring over at Itachi, who was still staring blankly into space. "Let's just get in. What time is it, anyway, un?"

"You think I know? Who has a watch?" Kisame demanded, looking around at the other Akatsuki members. They rolled their sleeves up, revealing bare wrists, until Sasori rolled his up. The self-built human puppet had a digital watch embedded in his wooden wrist.

"Smart, puppet," Kisame sneered. "What time is it? Are we late?"

"Call me by my name, shark boy," Sasori replied coldly. "Hidan, tell him the time." The puppet lifted his wrist towards the Jashin priest, who swung his scythe over his shoulder and glanced at the digital watch determinedly.

"Ehhh…" Hidan muttered, scratching his hair in confusion. After staring at the digital watch again, he straightened up instantly. The priest's eyes narrowed at Kisame's glare." Look, shark-boy, if you want to know the time, look it up yourself. God gave you eyes for a reason!"

Kisame groaned. "Don't tell me you don't even know how to read the time!"

Sasori sighed and pushed Hidan away. He strode over to Kisame, who read the time and nodded.

"It seems like we're gonna be late, guys," Kisame announced grandly to the relief of the Akatsuki members. Hidan even gave Tobi a high five when he heard Kisame's words. They clearly did not like taking tests.

"However, Pein's gonna be real pissed if we return as Genin," Kisame continued to the disappointment of the Akatsuki members. "Let's just grit our teeth and finish this exam!"

"Grit our teeth…easy for you to say," Deidara mumbled. "Just open those doors, un!" Kisame shot a death glare at the artist, but proceeded to follow his order anyway.

He strode over to the gates and roughly pulled them open. The gates screeched noisily as they were flung open to reveal the village of Konoha. Villagers were bustling about, minding their own businesses, and other takers for the Chunin Exam were hurrying by. Kisame ignored the glances of the villagers at his sharklike appearance and pointed at a Leaf Genin running up an alley. He turned back to his comrades. "Let's follow this Genin, I'm sure he's taking the exam too. If we're going to be late, at least he's going to be late, too."

The shark-nin started running after the Leaf Genin, and the others followed closely. Sasori was last, pulling the heavy Hiruko over with Chakra strings. However, the Akatsuki members soon arrived at the test center in the nick of time, which meant five seconds before being disqualified from the written exam. Hiruko rumbled into the double doors just before the clock on the wall rang loudly. The Genin who had arrived earlier immediately stopped talking and suddenly confident and determined expressions washed over their faces. They were clearly determined to become Chunin.

The proctor, Ibiki Morino, handed each of the exam takers a token to determine where their seating would be at. Itachi, fully hooded, took his token from Ibiki's gnarled hand and proceeded to the long desks. After a few minutes of searching, the Uchiha found himself sitting next to Hidan on his right side. The Jashinist leaned in and leered, revealing yellow teeth. "So, I'll just relax while you tell me the answers, all right?"

"Hidan, if you copy my answers, you'll be disqualified," Itachi warned his Akatsuki comrade sternly. "You'll have to find another way to gather answers, Jashinist."

"Damn." Hidan grunted. "Looks like you can't win everything."

Itachi waited patiently for the proctor to hand him the test paper in which he already knew all of the answers to. In his last Chunin Exam, he didn't bother using his Sharingan to cheat. He was exceptionally intelligient and a true prodigy, so why bother cheating? Itachi unrolled the paper he held in his hands and glanced briefly at the first question. His eyes widened in shock as he realized that the first question wasn't the same as last time! Oh yeah, he forgot...every year, the proctors changed the test questions. The Uchiha groaned. How could he forget that?

Ah well, no big loss. He was still intelligient. The Uchiha reached for his pencil on the desk, but accidentally knocked it onto the ground; it clanked on the tiled floor and rolled under the chair of the person on his left. Itachi glanced at the person on his left, and he was shocked for the second time in a row. He quickly turned aside and tried to cover his face up more heavily. He could not believe it; it was such a coincidence. It just wasn't fair to sit him next to his very own brother, the famed Sasuke Uchiha! Itachi was still shocked, and he did not hear Ibiki the proctor explaining the rules of the first test. No big loss; he already knew them all.

"Hell, my luck seriously sucks," Itachi noted to himself. "Hey, you, mind picking up my pencil for me?"

"Nine questions, blah, blah, blah," Ibiki was explaining. "Gather information, blah, blah. Caught cheating, blah, points, blah, blah, blah..." the proctor droned on and on.

Sasuke slowly turned around. Itachi breathed in heavily, his heart pounding; beads of sweat rolled down his face. Thankfully, as Sasuke faced him, oblivious to the fact that he was sitting next to his hated older brother, Itachi sighed in relief; Sasuke did not have his Sharingan activated. Sasuke bent down without a word, picked up the pencil, and thrusted it in Itachi's smooth hands. The younger Uchiha did it with style; his older brother could not help admiring him. Itachi muttered a quick thanks and turned back to the test paper on his desk. It was then that Itachi remembered that the Sharingan wasn't the same as the Byakugan; it could not see through clothing. The elder Uchiha pounded his head with his left hand. _I'm losing it! Seriously! Just because of little Sasuke here! _

_"_Next time, try to be less of a butterfinger," Sasuke quietly drawled before turning back to his own test paper. Itachi flinched slightly; that had been a simple remark, but the elder Uchiha took it as a heavy insult. He was not used to being advised by Sasuke; in the past, it was also Itachi who had scolded and pointed out Sasuke's various mistakes.

He was stuck in his uncomfortable reverie until he heard Ibiki Morino's booming, deep voice. "You have heard the rules; you may begin." Itachi immediately regained the posture of his old, Genin self; the prodigy position. He held the pencil tightly in his right hand and began to read the first question. Itachi instantly placed the pencil tip on the paper and began to write, his hand a blur since he was writing so fast. He knew the answers all right, but what about his Akatsuki comrades? Most of them aren't _that _bright. Itachi could feel people behind him concentrating on his back; but that was normal. You gotta cheat to gain answers, unless you were smart like a Uchiha.

It was then that a lanky chunin sitting on the side of the room stood up, wrote on his clipboard, and pointed at Itachi. "Fail."

Itachi wasn't sure if he heard correctly. _Fail? What the? _the Uchiha thought numbly. _How? Impossible! I must be dreaming! _He turned his head towards the chunin in unmasked disbelief.

He suddenly realized that the chunin was not pointing at him; rather, he was pointing at somebody near him. That somebody was sitting right beside Itachi, on his direct right. The Uchiha braced himself for a loud shouting match, and hurriedly stuck his fingers in his ears.

"FAIL? WHAT THE HELL?" the Jashinist bellowed. "What do you mean, fail? What does it mean anyway?"

The chunin who disqualified Hidan was dumbfounded. He didn't know what fail meant? "Uh...no matter! Hidan, you're disqualified, so get out of here! Kisame, Tobi, you too! What weird names you have..." the chunin added in undertone.

"DISQUALIFIED? NO WAY!" Hidan continued to protest. "YOU piece of shit! Any proof that I cheated?"

"Hey, watch your language!" the chunin yelled back. "And I never mentioned that you cheated! Which means, you admit it yourself! Out you go!"

"ASSHOLE!" Hidan sneered. "Make me!"

Kisame Hoshigaki stood up, his face filled with anger. Tobi, well, no one knew what he was thinking about behind that spiral mask. "Ah, come on, Hidan, face the facts! Let's go..."

"Damn you, Hidan," Kisame breathed. "I'll get you one day, don't worry about it."

"Go f*ck yourself!" Hidan snarled at the angry Kisame. "And you," the Jashinist pointed a finger at the chunin, "You're nothing but a pathetic bastard who doesn't know what he's saying!"

"Watch your language man!" Ibiki Morino growled, stepping in front of the stunned chunin. "You're disqualified. Get out, or I shall make you!" Every Genin in the room held their breaths as they watched the stern proctor step towards Hidan slowly. They had never seen Ibiki in action before, but everyone said the Head of torture and interrogation was a merciless man. Hidan, who did not know this, blew a raspberry at Ibiki.

"Show some respect, Hidan!" the chunin ordered the Jashinist. Hidan shot an intimidating death glare at the chunin, who shuddered slightly.

"Um, never mind. I'll leave this to you, Ibiki-san," the chunin stammered, defeated. This Genin wasn't normal. Ibiki nodded slightly and continued to stare at Hidan with that menacing stare of his, probably used when he interrogated prisoners.

"Fucker," Hidan grunted, giving up. "Whatever. I hate tests anyway, especially written ones. I'll leave, so just go back to your seats, pussies. You don't have to strip in front of me."

Ibiki was enraged at that insult. "You shut your mouth!" the head of torture and interrogation was rarely this pissed off. His face was red, steam was practically bursting out from under his cap. He reached into a pouch at his side, slowly bringing out a gleaming kunai.

Hidan proceeded to show Ibiki and the chunin a very rude gesture with his hands as he headed towards the door. "That's what I think of you two pussies." With that, he slid open the door, and stomped out, not looking back. His poor teammates, Kisame and Tobi, followed suit without any kind of argument. Kisame was extremely angry; he had almost completed his paper to question eight when that fool Hidan had to get himself disqualified for looking over at the person on his right!

"Sad, sad," Sasori sighed. He quickly glanced over at Hiruko, who was practically crushing his chair and squeezing the two testers who had the unfortunate luck of sitting beside the overgrown puppet. Sasori was forced to control Hiruko and write his answers at the same time, but he was a puppet master. It didn't matter the slightest; his fingers were extremely swift, and Hiruko was sitting right in front of him. All he worried about was Ibiki or some chunin catching sight of his chakra strings; he was certain that the Genin had no idea, except maybe for a fellow Sunagakure puppeter. Only those with awesome eyesight could; it was practically transparent, as Sasori had trained hard under the advice of Pein himself. And, another good thing was that Sasori had installed an ingenious video transmitter/camera system inside Hiruko, which could then be projected to himself via the chakra strings. A new string of information was sent his way, and Sasori began to write...

"What a fool," Tobi muttered. "He definitely isn't a good boy like Tobi!" The masked Akatsuki followed the disgrunted shark-nin away. Hidan's roars that Ibiki and the chunin were pussies still echoed down the hall. Kakuzu couldn't help laughing, but thankfully his laugh was mostly muffled by his mask.

Ibiki Morino waited until the trio were out of sight in the brightly lit hallway, then shut the door heavily. He glared back at the rest of the Genin, challenging them to cheat so openly like Hidan. They were all glancing at the proctor in fear. "Well, what are you waiting for? Get on with your work, or I'll disqualify you all!"

Itachi finally finished writing, and placed his pencil on the desk, rubbing his sore hands. He had completed the test easily; the paper was filled thoroughly from top to bottom, one to nine. His handwriting had always been neat as well; they were evenly spaced and were written in just the perfect size. Itachi grinned at the empty seat beside him. _I feel sorry for Kisame, he's got to put up with a retard like Hidan. Ah well, at least I'll pass no problem. _He leaned back in his chair, and couldn't help glancing over slightly at his younger brother, who was still writing. Sasuke was clearly using the Sharingan on the person in front of him to cheat. _Too bad he isn't a brain boy like myself. _

Kakuzu, being a money-loving bounty hunter, barely read or studied, except for occasional reads of the Bingo Book. However, he wasn't going to get himself disqualified; no, he needed to finally show Hidan some superior skills. Hidan's immortality was far better than his way of avoiding death, but this was a great chance to show his academic knowledge. The greedy bounty hunter reread the first question for the tenth time in a row, and hurriedly grabbed an eraser on his desk, plunging it onto his wrinkled paper. He had been doodling while watching Hidan's argument, and had been drawing various faces of his next targets on his paper. Kakuzu constantly did this at his leisure; this way, he would not forget their appearances. His targets have a habit of disguising themselves thoroughly, but with the original structure and face, Kakuzu could easily track them down. All that's important now, though, was the obstacle looming in front of him: the Test Paper. _I should've grabbed a nerdy shinobi's brain instead of their heart!_

Sasuke's teammates Suigetsu and Jugo glanced at their leader, sitting five rows in front of them, still bent over his paper, writing in concentration. Suigetsu had no way of cheating, and that was the case with Jugo as well. Only Sasuke had the Sharingan. Life was unfair sometimes; leaders of teams were always gifted with great qualities.

Sasuke knew he didn't really have to answer the nine questions, he'd just have to settle for the tenth one to ace the test. However, he was bored, so why not show the others his improved knowledge? It was Kabuto who had taught him these; Orochimaru, being the lazy, perverted snake he was, only sparred with Sasuke for around five to ten minutes each day before excusing himself, saying, "I need to shed my skin."

While the Genin taking the test were busy at work, three people outside were not. Hidan, Kisame and Tobi sat on a bench moodily. Kisame glanced enviously at the closed door to the exam room, thinking about how he could've easily aced the test due to Itachi's guidance beforehand. Tobi, being a good boy, had prepared well for this. Hidan, though, made them all fail. The Jashinist was busy hurling insults and taunts filled with vulgar language at Genin who had been caught cheating. The Genin were so depressed that they didn't even try to counter Hidan's words; they merely slouched past the three Akatsuki members, lost in their own thoughts. Kisame even heard one Sand Genin vowing to cut Ibiki's head one day when he became Kazekage. _As if that's possible at this rate, _Kisame thought, glancing at the heavily turbaned Sand Genin and his angry teammates, who shot evil glares at their teammate from behind. The Shark-nin glanced at Tobi, who was sitting in solitude, then at the person who made him fail. His hands gripped Samehada tightly, preparing to swing it with all his might at Hidan's neck.

"To hell with it!" Kisame howled, standing up, his cloak billowing. He didn't care about the consequences now! The shark-nin raised Samehada above Hidan's head, poised to end the Jashinist's damn life. "Say your prayers, Hidan, you're going to die right here!"

That was then Kisame remembered Hidan's immortality. Still, even without killing the priest, he could just lop off his head and leave it on the bench to shock the other disqualified Genin. The shark-nin grinned, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth, and started to bring Samehada down. Tobi watched this with interest.

"Wait, wait!" Hidan shrieked as he saw the rapidly falling sword above his head. Kisame stopped one inch from Hidan, surprised that the Jashinist had noticed the sword in the midst of all his insulting. "I've got a plan, shark boy. Revenge should be sweet."

"Oh yeah?" Kisame challenged. "I should just end your misery right here, your brain is probably on the verge of explosion from thinking up all those vulgar insults!"

Hidan smirked. That Kisame clearly did not know him well. His brain, in fact, was savoring the gory thoughts Hidan was thinking about; all in all, the priest was downright violent. He raised a hand to stop Kisame from raising further objections. "Ever heard the saying, if you can't join them, beat them?"

Kisame looked blankly at the Jashinist, while Tobi shook his head violently in the corner. He stood up and pointed a finger at Hidan. "Tobi is a good boy, Tobi will not join Hidan-sempai in comitting misdeeds!"

"Get over it, Tobi!" Hidan hissed, glaring at the masked man. "Enough of your 'good boys'!" He turned to Kisame. "You should've seen the stuff he's done when you, Itachi, Sasori, and Deidara were out. Pein had me and Kakuzu scrub the toilets for weeks!"

Kisame laughed hollowly. His laugh sounded like somebody underwater who was struggling to breathe. "Oh yeah, that was amusing, wasn't it! Tobi, what exactly did you do?"

"Ehh...Tobi is a good boy! Tobi did not do what Hidan just mentioned!" Tobi protested, folding his arms in defiance.

"Whatever, asshole," Hidan grunted smugly. "Let's just talk about our plan, you two naysayers. Here's what we're gonna do..." He began to speak in a low voice, and his two teammates leaned in for the explanation.


	3. Passed!

_Yes! Finally! For the love of god, I have completed this...! _Kakuzu thought happily. The bounty hunter slammed his pencil on his desk and leaned back in his chair, glancing proudly at his word-filled paper. He had answered every question with at least five sentences of explanation, and was quite tired after all the writing. His hands had tired out in the middle of finishing question four, so he had to resort to using the tentacles inside his stitched arm to hold the pencil and finish the answers off. It had held quite good, actually, the way the tentacles moved and brushed against his gnarled, tanned skin. Kakuzu sighed and leaned back, resisting the urge to place his feet on the desk next to him; almost every Genin in his row had been disqualified for cheating too obviously. The person to the left of him had tried to bribe Kakuzu into telling him the answer. When he offered his slim amount of ryo, Kakuzu haughtily shook his head; he wanted at least 50,000 ryo to be satisfied. That person then insulted Kakuzu as a greedy pig and the chunin ninjas proceeded to throw him and his team out of the doors. The bounty hunter glanced at the chunins darkly and wondered if he would be thrown out too; luckily, the chunins decided not to make any more trouble and they sat down in their respective chairs, leaving Kakuzu alone. _Lucky for you_, the bounty hunter sneered silently. _If you even attempt to throw me out, I'll fight back, unlike that retard Hidan who didn't even think about battling_ _even though he's a Jashinist. _Kakuzu decided to see how the other Akatsuki members are faring, and his completely obsidian-black eyes started to zoom around.

Zetsu, who was sitting in a corner at the back of the room, was clearly done with his test. Itachi Uchiha, well, of course he's done, being so smart. Kakuzu glanced at the bombing artist Deidara, who sat only a few seats away from the bounty hunter himself. Deidara had used two pencils so far; the first pencil had been chewed into unrecognizable, saliva-filled pieces by the mouth on his right hand. Deidara had to ask for a new one, and this time the mouth did not attempt to destroy the writing untensil held right in front of it. Kakuzu silently laughed; it looked like Deidara was still struggling with his test.

The puppet master, his teammate, was done. Kakuzu had noticed him controlling Hiruko from a distance with his nearly-invisible chakra strings, and he knew Sasori had installed a spying machine in Hiruko's body. It's really not surprising that nobody had found out Hiruko's only a puppet; he was a human before Sasori slaughtered him and converted his corpse into a multi-functional battling human puppet. _Who knows, I should make a deal with that puppet-boy, he's going to strike it rich if he sells more ingenious puppets, _Kakuzu pondered, grinning under his mask. His team was gonna pass this easy written exam without any further problems. Kakuzu, however, had an uneasy feeling in his stomach. Knowing Hidan, his would-be partner when they start the hunt for Jinchuuriki, that Jashinist would try something rash in order to gain revenge. The Jashinist had a motto, "If you can't join 'em, beat 'em", and Kakuzu was afraid Hidan meant more than that. He was surely going to create havoc, possibly persuading Kisame Hoshigaki and good boy Tobi into it. Kisame was going to be troublesome with all the techniques he has in his sleeve, but Tobi was nothing but a troublemaker. He'd have to watch out for whatever's coming next; Kakuzu guessed Hidan would put his plan in action sometime during the next stage of the Chunin Exam. Should he warn the others? Maybe his teammate Sasori, but definitely not Itachi, Zetsu, and that so-called artist. Kakuzu smiled and started to whistle in a low tone, glad that he's prepared for whatever Hidan was planning.

_Note to self: be alert and vigilant in the Forest of Death, _Itachi Uchiha thought, gritting his perfect teeth. He had a bad feeling that something was going to happen in the Forest of Death; after all, he heard Sasuke himself was attacked by the Snake Sannin Orochimaru during the Forest of Death in the younger Uchiha's first Chunin Exam. His skills had gone rusty; he had not engaged in a real, tough, life-on-the-line battle since his short struggle with the Toad Sannin Jiraiya. He'd had to use Amaterasu to escape, and this time, Itachi had vowed not to use any of the Mangekyo Sharingan techniques in the exam, as it was very tiring to use, not to mention painful due to the bleeding of his eye when activating the black flames of Amaterasu. He didn't really have to worry about movement, since Zetsu could easily manuever the forest's obstacles with ease, and Deidara's Clay Bird could provide easy transition too. The only possible trouble is a scenario in which Deidara refuses Itachi seating on his Clay Bird. Itachi stopped thinking about upcoming strategies, and shot an alert glance at the ticking clock on the wall. Ibiki was strolling about, whistling quietly to himself, while the other chunins placed around the room were either sleeping, quietly conversing, or staring at the Genin. The elder Uchiha noticed that there was only five minutes left before the deadly "tenth question." A new wave of doubt struck his mind as he thought about the tenth question; what if Deidara chickened out? Zetsu he wasn't worried about due to his brains, but Deidara...that fool could act without thinking and disqualify him and Zetsu in the process! _All right, it's time to see whether hell or heaven breaks out, _Itachi thought bitterly, stealing a glance at his long-haired teammate.

"Fail," a chunin snapped, pointing at a ninja from Sunagakure. The accused Genin, who had tried to steal answers by looking out of the very, _very _corner of his eyes, stood up and left without a word, followed by his two disappointed teammates. They were so disappointed that they seemed to have lost the ability to walk properly, as they slammed into desks on their way out. The chubbiest guy of the three just had to smash into the desk on the very edge of Itachi's row, sending the every desk in the row to shake violently. _"_That kid's got some strength, eh?" Itachi sniggered quietly as he glanced up at Ibiki, who was just closing the door. The fat kid had gotten stuck in the door just now, but Ibiki merely gave him a "Thousand Years of Pain" technique (similar to Kakashi's), and he bolted out the door like a frenzied leopard. Ibiki now returned back to his post at the front of the room, and every chunin suddenly sat straight, alert expressions flashing across their faces like paint.

"Time's up!" Ibiki roared. "It's time for the tenth question! Let me explain the rules; some of you might think it's a matter between life and death."

"Life and death?" Sasuke Uchiha chuckled. "You gotta be kiddin' me! You just gotta answer~"

He suddenly realized Ibiki was staring at him right in the eyes with such force that his powerful will was crumbling. Sasuke shutted his mouth up. The first-timer Genins glanced at him in confusion at what he just revealed.

"Well, as I was saying, before this young man here rudely interrupted my speech," Ibiki stated, pointing at Sasuke. The proctor had always been a very direct man, not afraid of embarrassing others or anything like that. The chunins around the room all centered their eyes on Sasuke Uchiha, wondering if they should disqualify the emotionless interrupter. Perhaps not, that kid's got some really evil, bloody eyes; the kind that makes you feel like he's going to murder you right away, in front of bystanders. Ibiki had raised his voice.

"If you decide to answer the tenth question," Ibiki rumbled, a look of deadly seriousness crossing his scarred face, "You must make a very difficult decision. If you answer this question right, you'll proceed to the next phase of the Chunin Exams! However, there is one catch: if you fail to answer this question correctly, you'll have no choice but to go home and stay a Genin forever! I know this is a hard decision, but I'll give you five minutes to think about it. Start!" The proctor set the timer on his jet-black watch to five minutes. Ibiki always gave five minutes during this question; it was always the one which had shocked and intimidated the most Genin. The stern proctor respected the Genin's decisions, but it was also about luck. If one Genin of a team decides to leave, he'll force the others which want to take the 10th question to exit as well, therefore, luck is depended on. However, there was also the case of cowardiness. Would you take the the question and hope for the best, with the concept of staying the same rank for the rest of your life stuck in your head? This was deadly serious.

Every Akatsuki member glanced at Itachi Uchiha as soon as Ibiki finished his sentence and set the timer. They all had the same thoughts in their head: if Itachi decides to answer it, we'll answer it too. Itachi gave no hint of playing pussy and running out the door, so the other Akatsuki members nodded to themselves and settled back in their seats, waiting for the suspense to finish. They didn't really care if they'd have to stay Genin forever; it was the matter of Pein which scared them more. Pein would surely assign torturous punishment to them for failing the Exam; the Akatsuki leader had hinted that he might make the flunkers serve dinner and wash dishes for the next three years. It was horrible; Konan had always served dinner and washed the grime-filled dishes every day, and from what the members had seen of the process, it was horrid.

"C'mon, I can't fail, can I?" White Zetsu murmured to himself. The cannibal shinobi clenched his fists in gritty determination, and he took several deep breaths just to soothe suspense which was overwhelming him. "I've gone too far to lose it all!" At least, only his white part was affected. The black half didn't really care.

"**You might**," Black Zetsu hissed in a low tone, a smug grin crossing his lips. "**There's a fifty-fifty chance, and stop clenching the fist on my side!" **

White Zetsu glared at Black Zetsu. "That wasn't what I meant. I don't care about probability, and I'm only clenching both fists because it felt more reassuring!"

Itachi, meanwhile, was carefully observing the all that's left of the original crowd exam-takers.

"ALL RIGHT! TIME'S UP!" Ibiki exclaimed. He was surprised that none of the Genin left. It was a new record, as every year, at least 1/3 of the remaining Genin in the "tenth question stage" would have given up. His sharp eyes quickly scanned the room, looking for any exceptional-looking shinobi. _That's an interesting fellow, _Ibiki thought, narrowing his eyes at Itachi Uchiha's hooded figure. _I can surely sense some kind of powerful aura from this guy. Too bad he's a shy one, wearing that heavy hood on this blazing day. _

_"_Good news, brats," Ibiki announced after a moment of silence from the takers. White half of Zetsu held his breath while the black part continued breathing as if nothing major was going to occur right in front of his eyes. Sasori and Kakuzu gave each other thumbs up, and turned back to face the stern proctor.

"You've all...." Ibiki stopped midsentence. The chunins leaned back in their chair, bored of Ibiki's yearly suspenseful sentence-stoppers. "You've all..."

"Hurry up," Sasori groaned. "I'm not gonna wait all day, I'm quite impatient, if you must know!"

Kakuzu and Zetsu exchanged horrified glances. What was taking Ibiki Morino the proctor so long to say a sentence? Had they failed after all this time? An hour of excruciating pain and torture to their hands and brains? Kakuzu shook his head in disbelief; he refused to believe he had failed! Deidara glanced at Ibiki with increasing anger and suspense. _I can't fail, un, I don't wanna end up like Tobi! _Sasuke Uchiha and Itachi, meanwhile, just sat back in their chairs, calmly waiting. Other retakers from last year and before also sat back, waiting in ease.

Ibiki ignored the puppeteer and the glares most of the first-timer Genin were shooting him at every glance. "You've all..." He drummed his fingers on the mahogany desk, hoping to increase the suspense more. He stopped to adjust his cap, and opened his mouth again. "You've all...um..."

"GOOD NEWS! YOU'VE ALL PASSED!" the proctor declared at last to the sighs of the Genin. "By having the guts to take the tenth question head on, you've proven yourselves to be wise decision-makers, and most importantly, you're not pussies after all! One step further on the road to becoming a Chunin!"

"Yes! I passed! Sweet, un!" Deidara chanted slapping his hands in victory.

"Ibiki-sensei, what are you talking about?" a Genin snapped. "What do you mean, pussies? Aren't you one yourself?"

Ibiki was enraged, but he decided not to make an argument out of such a small matter; his part of the exam was over, he should just go home and rest. Instead, the scarred face proctor raised a hand. "Since you have passed the first exam, proceed to the Forest of Death for your second exam. It's considerably more dangerous than this one, as you'll need all your survival skills to stay alive in that wretched domain. Anko, the hyperactive proctor for the second exam, stopped her yearly routine of coming to this classroom to take you guys there. Now that she's become a lazy butt, I'm sorry, but you'll have to walk there by yourself. It's quite a long way to walk, so hurry up and get out of my sight!" Ibiki proceeded to walk down the first aisle, picking up the test papers and checking them over to see which Genin had the most questions answered. It didn't really matter as only the last question counted, but it was still worthwhile seeing who's a brain boy or not. While he was collecting the papers, most of the Genin had filed out, including the Akatsuki members. Sasuke stood up, glanced suspiciously at the hooded Itachi with a withering stare, then skulked out of the classroom, followed by a gigantic man and a blue-haired swordsman who had teeth like Kisame's. _Thank goodness he didn't recognize me. That blue-haired dude is probably a Seven Swordsmen of the Mist wannabe. I should inform Kisame. _

Kakuzu extended a heavy stitched hand and slapped high five with Sasori's wooden hand as they walked out of the doors, Hiruko sliding slowly after its puppeteer. Deidara and white Zetsu exchanged grins, but when the bomber turned to Itachi, his grin abruptly slid off. No way was he gonna smile at his eternal nemesis.

"Hey Deidara, aren't you gonna congratulate me for filling every question from top to bottom in great detail?" Itachi said quietly as he stepped next to the long-haired bomber. Deidara glanced at him with beady eyes, as the mouths on his hand palms bared their teeth menacingly.

"That's a sucky accomplishment, un," Deidara sneered. "Looky here, I'm Itachi Uchiha, the long-haired brain boy with eyes letting loose eternal blood!"

"Look who's talking, Deidara," Itachi retorted, slightly pissed off. He had long since forgot the way he forced Deidara into Akatsuki by defeating his exploding clay techniques with his all-powerful Mangekyo Sharingan; in fact, Itachi believed in making friends with the bomber. Having all your comrades who excel at fighting in your good books was a nice sign, as they probably won't think of betraying you. Kisame was an example; he had recently gained the upper hand over Sasori. Deidara, well...he just holds grudges for a long time, doesn't he? "At least I don't have mouths licking my hand every day, non stop; and, I don't have girly hair like you do! My ponytail is considered, "Cool!" Deidara just stared at him in defiance.

Itachi thought for a moment after finishing his statement. "Un," he added, just for the fun of it.

"Making fun of the way I speak, eh, Uchiha, un?" Deidara growled. Itachi just winked his left eye, pulled his dark hood lower, and slouched away after the busily talking Zetsu. The plant-nin had no companion at his side, rather, his two sides were talking about the first test. The elder Uchiha glanced over Zetsu and saw Sasuke turn a corner and disappear from sight, flanked by his two subordinates. What if he met Sasuke's team in the Forest of Death? Should he remind his brother of his existence again in a painful manner or just leave him as he is now? Time will surely tell. The Uchiha walked on, ignoring all of Deidara's taunts.

"Things are going to get interesting," he mused to himself as he walked out of the test center, fortunately, in one piece.

The Akatsuki members who passed the test were so relieved that they did not notice three cloaked figures hiding in a dark alleyway. One of them gripped his scythe tightly and smiled.

"Looks like 'Tachi passed OK," Kisame Hoshigaki muttered enviously. He should be there accompanying his best friend, instead of hiding in an alley with a "good boy" and a retarded, dirty-mouthed Jashinist!

"Deidara-sempai is a good boy like me!" Tobi exclaimed loudly. "He passed the test with ease!" Hidan instantly muffled him by pushing hard on the spiky-haired shinobi's mask.

"Heh, we should get to that damn Forest early, eh?" Hidan suggested, a mischievous smile spreading on his lips. "C'mon, why're we wasting time here? Let's get going!" With that, the three Akatsuki members turned and fled down the alley, towards the site of the second test.

* * *

Okay, so, let's just make it clear that none of the Rookie 9 and Team Gai have become chunin yet. (except for Shikamaru. Naruto, btw, is out training with Jiraiya, so he won't make an appearance.) I'm planning to put them into this story later. (They don't know Akatsuki's true might yet, either!)


	4. An Unexpected Break

"Holy cow, I'm so pooped, I wanna recharge," Sasori dragged his wooden body along the ground weakly and moaned, simultaneously pulling Hiruko along with the last of his strength. He almost collapsed, but fortunately when he did he crashed onto Hiruko's hard shell. "Where's my damn oil, anyway?" The puppet master glanced around suspiciously, surprised to find it missing, only to suddenly remember that Pein had confisticated it when he had gotten into a shouting match with Deidara over whose art was more "artful."

"You could've ridden in Hiruko, Sasori-danna, remember there's air conditioning in him," Deidara reminded the puppet master, but Sasori chose not to reply as he was conserving his energy. "Un," the bomber quickly added, shooting a dirty glance at Itachi Uchiha. "Let's get outta here, I wanna have a private talk with you."

Sasori nodded, refusing to reply in words, much to Deidara's displeasure. He shrugged, clanking his shoulders, and followed Deidara down a path into the shade of a few looming trees. Itachi, meanwhile, walked in the opposite direction, accompanied by Kakuzu and Zetsu the cannibal.

"What are we going to do now, Uchiha, Kak?" Zetsu's white half muttered as he grabbed a leaf from the ground and started to fan himself with it, hoping to at least cool himself down a bit. The blazing orb in the sky was still firing off beams of heat; the leaf was hardly useful, so Zetsu tossed it onto the ground and started to stomp on it vigorously, only to make himself sweat some more on the action.

"I just want to relax," Kakuzu complained huffily. "I've never been so stressed in my life, and trust me, the last time I was stressed was more than a hundred years ago. Plus, it's freakin' hot here. Amegakure was much better; cool barrages of rain almost every day."

"Hey, we've still got a whole hour before the Forest of Death," Itachi Uchiha reminded his two fellow Akatsuki members. "Relax, Kakuzu. Who cares if it's hot? I'm already too hot for the sun to make me hotter." The Uchiha said it in a very proud tone, and Zetsu sniggered. Itachi had never admitted his nice features to the two Akatsuki men, and from the way Itachi said "hot", Zetsu guessed that the Uchiha had used the other meaning of hot, not the temperature one.

"You're right, Einstein, but what should we do now? I'm quite hungry, if you must know the truth," Zetsu sighed, rubbing his stomach like a cat. Drool started to flow from his mouth, and his sharp eyes widened at the sight of several people walking down the path. Itachi grabbed him by the collar and told him not to eat any humans, at least for now. Zetsu never had a habit of cleaning up completely; he either left an arm when he finished his meal, or merely an eyeball or so; those small details. People could track him down by inspecting the teeth marks on the leftovers of the feast, but Zetsu was skilled at hiding, too, so he didn't care at all. However, devouring a human right here in the sunny village of Konoha could mean trouble; you never know when an ANBU could appear, one might be hiding stealthily behind the tree in front of the three as far as Itachi could see. The Uchiha prodigy, Kakuzu the bounty hunter, and Zetsu walked down turned a corner and walked down yet another bustling street in Konoha, avoiding several gossiping women.

Anko, the proctor for the second phase of the Chunin Exam, had told them to "f**k off" when the people who had aced the first test reached the Forest of Death entrance after a tiring, meaningless walk. From what Itachi could see, Anko was quite drunk, no, make that EXTREMELY DRUNK, and she had promptly fell asleep on one of her fellow Chunin assistants, squashing him onto the dirt-filled ground heavily. While a bowl-headed, bushy-browed Genin wearing green clothes had dubbed the scene "Youthfully disturbing". Itachi saw that the Genin reminded him of some freaky, immature geek who always gave the "good guy" pose. Itachi snapped his fingers; he remembered it was that weirdo called Gai or something from his days in Konoha; he was actually not surprised to see that Gai had infected his student with the "good guy" curse. Once you get infected, or rather, once you accept it, you won't be able to avoid it anymore, it would've already become a daily routine. Itachi turned his head back to Anko, who was now moaning in her sleep and twisting her butt on the guy's poor self; he could not see what the deal was, though. After all, when he was younger, tons of fangirls had chased him around Konoha, trying to perform the same deed on his unwatching back. Luckily, he was totally vigilant and managed to avoid any incident like that. He watched, slightly amused, as the Chunin being squashed by Anko's snoring self was squealing loudly and noisily, unable to decide whether being squashed by a woman's body was pleasureable or simply down-to-earth (literally.) The Chunin, his scarred face practically digging into the ground, rolled his bloodshot eyes up at another assistant, who was doubled over in silent laughter, clutching his stomach as he watched his fellow Chunin's face go completely red, slammed into the ground by such force.

"Dude, lend me a hand, will ya?" the unfortunate Chunin assistant pleaded his comrade, who either ignored it or did not hear the request. "Please, it feels like I'm being smashed by a ton of bricks!"

"Hey, hey, hey, she's got quite a nice body, man," the fortunate Chunin assistant replied, still grinning. "I think I'll just leave you as you are; as you know, it's quite impolite to attack a woman, especially a defenseless one."

The smashed Chunin did not hear his comrade's reply as he had passed out, his eyeballs almost bulging out of its sockets. The other Chunin turned around and faced the large crowd of test-takers, who were all watching the scene in amusement. Itachi noticed a white-clothed young man with long brown hair staring at Anko and her victim in concentration. Veins were sticking out of the long-haired guy's face, and his eyes were...well...milky white. Itachi easily recognized him using the Byakugan, therefore he must be a Hyuga, one of the clans who might have the necessary skills to surpass the elite Uchihas. _Well, it certainly won't come true as long as me and Sasuke are alive, _Itachi bitterly thought. On the other hand, the Uchiha prodigy could not figure out why a Hyuga blessed with such a useful ability would use it for wrongdoings, like peeking through women's clothing like the long-haired guy was doing now. His teammate, a brunette-haired girl, slapped him across the face, causing the long-haired guy to collapse, landing on the ground with his face looking straight up. The Hyuga was now glancing at his teammate in interest with the Byakugan still activated; the girl merely gave him another bitch-slap, causing him to writh on the ground in pain. The green-clothed boy who had spoken earlier was now lecturing his teammate about "Proper use of Youthful bloodline abilities." Some other Genin, probably their friends, were laughing, although Itachi could tell that the one wearing sunglasses was fake-laughing.

Itachi smiled; he certainly wasn't like those guys when he was young; he was always the tall, intelligient, good-looking one; the one who never argued or bickered over a small matter; the one who was always serious, a role model for Konoha's younger generation, the guy blessed with leadership abilities. That however, took away time for humor, recreation, and fun among other things; at his leisure time, he was expected to train harder. His power-hungry father had forced him to do so. _Don't dwell on the past, _Itachi sternly reminded himself as his ever-wandering mind started to wander to the fateful night when he single-handedly massacred the whole Uchiha clan with only his ANBU sword. Hiruzen Sarutobi, the late Third Hokage, had forced him to do so; he feared that the Uchiha clan was gaining enough power to surpass him and take over Konoha. He had feared that the Uchihas would unleash techniques beyond his wildest dreams, and had ordered the loyal ANBU captain Itachi Uchiha to carry out the evil deed of murder. That old man had even puffed on his pipe, leaning back in his chair with one foot on his mahogany desk while ordering Itachi sternly about his "must-not-fail-mission", with the elders watching him for his reaction. Itachi had obeyed without question; he was too young to die at that time. Whenever he thought back to that day though, he was always reminded of himself telling Sasuke to hate him, that particular statement had almost ripped his own heart into quarters. _Must not dwell on the past! _Itachi told himself again, this time more fiercely. _I'll never get past this Exam again if I dwell on the past for too long._ He glanced up to see the Chunin assistant saying something to the unruly crowd of Genin.

"All right guys, I know you're anxious to get into this Forest, but with Anko apparently occupied there's nothing I can do," the Chunin explained in a relaxed manner. "You may stay here and wait, but you're free to go for one hour; to prepare yourself for last-minute preparations, enjoy a last bowl of ramen, that sort of thing. Just be back in a hour!" Before the Chunin had finished his sentence, the others had already left, including Deidara and Sasori, who had wandered off to do something. Hiruko sat abandoned in the midst of the Genin who were staying. The Chunin took one glance at the human puppet's ferocious face and went white before walking off hurriedly. That cloaked fatty looked like he was sixty, and he's still a Genin? Unbelievable.

As Itachi, Zetsu and Kakuzu wandered off from the site, three men wearing cloaks embedded with red cloud symbols had snuck into the Forest of Death via a hole in the fence. They had got in via the hard way; they had no idea the fence was rigged with volts of electricity. Always prepared, Kisame had ordered Hidan to go in first, and the Jashinist had tried to force a hole in the fence while holding his head high for nothing but pride. The upcoming jolt of electricity had zoomed through the Jashinist's body like lightning, and he had fell smoking onto the ground, his eyes twitching in agony. However, Kisame and Tobi did not give a damn; after all, Hidan was immortal, he would not die. The jolt would've rendered a normal shinobi into a coma or even death, but due to Hidan's stamina, he had merely laid there wincing, cursing the damn fence, and swearing at Kisame for his cowardiness. At any rate, after Hidan recovered, he had successfully shielded his two companions into the hole he had created while suffering the pain. In the end though, he was quite proud of his accomplishment; he may have blacked out five times during the process, but it was a great accomplishment nevertheless. Now Hidan limped along a small creek, followed by Kisame and Tobi, who was mumbling about "Scary buggies." Hidan managed to grin through the agonizing pain; he was going to get revenge for being disqualified, although it wouldn't be conducted on Ibiki or any of the Chunin. The shinobi and kunoichi taking the exam right now would be the ones that'll pay...in ruby-red blood!

* * *

Now Itachi and his two Akatsuki comrades stopped at a ramen stand called the Ichiraku.

"Yo, Kakuzu, wanna take care of this round?" Itachi demanded. He knew the answer was outright no.

"No way, buster," Kakuzu growled dangerously. "You're asking me to waste my money when there's a better use in store for it?"

"Oh yeah, care to explain what it is?" Zetsu's white half grumbled tiredly, his stomach rumbling.

"It goes to me!" Kakuzu explained brightly. "Ain't that a good cause? Plus, most shinobi I've met donated their money unwillingly, but hey, that's life."

"I'm broke, so don't look at me," Itachi admitted sadly. He had been forced to give his life time savings to Pein last week for a "I gave you shelter, a job, and food for years tax" which had hit every Akatsuki member heavily except for maybe the bounty hunter.

"**Yeah Kak, you're paying!" **Black Zetsu hissed. "**Do you want me to eat you?" **

"Didn't I tell you I'm not?" Kakuzu stammered, trying to conceal his fear of the barely-seen Black half.

"Listen to Blacky here," Itachi reasoned, using his best ANBU manners. "You're the richest one, don't be a selfish pig. I'll be sure to pay you back anyway, sooner or later." Itachi turned his head. "When Pein gives me my paycheck," he muttered in an undertone to Zetsu.

"You know he's not going to until about three years later," white Zetsu replied quietly as Kakuzu strolled into the Ichiraku Ramen Stand. Itachi motioned and the two of them strode into the ramen stand after Kakuzu, instantly overwhelmed by the enticing smell of freshly-made ramen. Itachi's nose tingled and drool actually slid out of his normally drooless mouth as the smell engulfed him. He needed food, he was emaciated!

"Kakuzu, you're paying!" Itachi ordered as he grabbed chopsticks and called for three bowls of Super-size Ramen. The bounty hunter nodded, he had heard it a thousand times already. Did Itachi think he was deaf or what? Sure, from his hood, facemask, and heavily stitched face, you could have mistaken him for a suicide bomber gone wrong. His ears had actually being blasted off once in a freak stealth mission failure, but by some miracle he had stitched it back onto the sides of his tanned head with various tentacles in his body. Kakuzu had seriously considered becoming a surgeon-nin before turning into a full-time bounty hunter. The reward was greater.

"Here you go, gentlemen," the cook exclaimed, placing three huge, steaming bowls of ramen before their hungry selves. "Enjoy your meal, it's the best in Konoha!"

Kakuzu sat in a corner, afraid of showing his mouth; it was quite scary after all. Itachi and Zetsu had begun eating already, although Zetsu ate more slowly than the Uchiha, as he was eating something completely different from the human flesh that he was accustomed to. In two minutes flat, Itachi had finished, and a few seconds later, Zetsu also completed his mega-sized bowl. Kakuzu continued to slurp the tasty soup with passion; it had been ages since he had been eating so freely without the interference of his facemask. The bounty hunter slurped the soup with passion, ignoring some which dropped onto his cloak, splattering onto the soft garment and staining it quite skillfully. This was a time of solitude and greatness; Kakuzu loved the feeling of the smooth, delicate ramen brushing against his stitched mouth, partically the process of eating. Kakuzu never actually used his teeth to eat, he merely sucked it in as his teeth had long blackened out and were now weak and worthless. Itachi had lost interest in watching the bounty hunter eat like a ramen-maniac, and was now outside of the stand, observing the scenes around him. Konoha had really changed since his defection from the great village, the once prominent Uchiha clan estate was now abandoned, and people had spread rumors that ghosts with Sharingan eyes now haunt the place. It deeply saddened Itachi as he glanced around; life as a S-ranked criminal was certainly hard with barely any time for enjoyment and leisure, but he was determined to make use of his time back at Konoha. He turned, walked slowly back into the stand, and forced Kakuzu to pay the bill.

"Let's get going, we've still got a few minutes left before the next test, but you, Kakuzu," Itachi smirked, his face still warm and moist beneath his black hood, "You wasted thirty six minutes just slurping soup and sucking in those ramen. I must say, it's quite good, but I've never known you to be someone who would actually ENJOY ramen."

Kakuzu merely grunted, clearly pissed off by the statement, and he ignored his comrades as they laughed loudly. His fingers reached into his pouch and hovered above a black, sharp-tipped kunai, but he stopped, choosing not to act violently and commit bloody murder on the streets. What was so funny about choosing his first-ever favorite food, anyway?

* * *

"Glad to be back home, Sasuke-sama?" Jugo rumbled in a deep voice as he sat perched on a greyish boulder, watching several birds fly by, blessed with freedom similar to the wind's. The raven-haired Uchiha leaned against a towering oak tree, with no obvious expression of happiness on his cold face. He shook his head slightly, slightly annoyed by Jugo's question; the answer was, he had no direct answer to reply with. Suigetsu was blabbing about seeing Kisame Hoshigaki and his godly sword, Samehada, sneaking into the Forest of Death, but Jugo had pummeled him hard, lecturing the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist wannabe about honesty, but that proved useless. Suigetsu continued to blabble about seizing this opportunity to gain the Samehada, but he finally stopped after Sasuke shot him a deathly glare; no one could possibly stand up against the glare. Sasuke absentmindedly reached a hand through his hair, glancing at Jugo, who was now conversing quietly with the obnoxious Suigetsu, still sore-faced from the lack of believers at his theory. The Uchiha wasn't sure how he felt when he returned to Konoha, forced by Orochimaru to undergo the Chunin Exam again in order to be proven within his large army of subordinates. Although Sasuke was clearly the Snake Sannin's favorite, the others did not act so kindly to the raven-haired Uchiha, especially those who had served within Orochimaru's army for years, like the veteran healing-nin Kabuto, among others. Orochimaru had announced quite grandly that Sasuke will easily ace the Exam and become a Chunin, and had sent Suigetsu and Jugo with the Uchiha, forming "Team Snake." Sasuke, not expecting this order from Orochimaru to be the kind he was looking forward to, accepted nevertheless; he didn't have a choice anyways. Sasuke had waited until they reached Konoha to change their team name into his preferred title of "Team Uchiha", as in Otogakure there were tons of the Snake Sannin's spies wandering aimlessly everywhere, although they were always well hidden.

_My friends..._Sasuke Uchiha pondered grimly. _I have no friends now, all I have now are comrades, and...hatred. Hatred for Itachi the jackshit. _

He had chosen to go to Orochimaru on his free will. Teams had been sent out to try retrieve him back to Konoha, but he had always evaded their petty efforts with ease, either from Orochimaru's defenses, or simply by his superior skills. He wouldn't have gone back with any of Konoha's retrieval teams anyway, as killing his brother Itachi was his only goal in mind; Orochimaru's training will simply ease the process up faster. He wasn't even sure if his Chidori could repel a Goukakyu No Jutsu (Grand Fireball) from Itachi, even though the Chidori was considered stronger than the Goukakyu. He sacrificed his freedom, friends, and village in exchange for training under a villain in order to gain revenge. Even so, he couldn't help feeling a bit melancholy as he glanced at an abandoned forehead protector with Konoha's symbol on it. _Itachi, you will pay. You took away all I ever cared out, and now I must put up with an old pervert with snakes in his body to finally murder you at last. I hope my battle with you in the future will be brutal. _

"C'mon, Sasuke Uchiha," Suigetsu hissed, standing up and grabbing the heavy weapon of Zabuza Momochi from where it was laid on the green grass. "The second test is starting, let's go. Looks like the proctor is finally somber again, eh? Tough luck." A disappointed grin replaced the mischievous smile that seemed to be almost always glued to the water-nin's mouth. "Why'd you stop me from attempting to bang her earlier, Sasuke? No reply? Fine, let's go." He huffily turned, swinging Zabuza's weapon over his shoulder with monstrous strength. Jugo followed him quietly after beckoning to Sasuke, and the younger Uchiha finally stopped leaning on the tree as he walked away, taking care to walk tenderly over the newly grown grass.

_When I encounter you again, Itachi Uchiha, _Sasuke vowed, _Even hell will be scared by my righteous anger. _The Team Uchiha arrived at the entrance of the Forest of Death, where the test-takers had already gathered around Anko; the proctor was explaining the test in great detail. Sasuke, having heard everything last year, stood back, flanked by his two comrades. His eyes uddenly widened as he set sight on a group of Genin standing to the side. His fists clenched and he hurriedly sprinted to the opposite side, away from the group. Suigetsu and Jugo were surprised, but they quickly followed their leader anyway; there must be a good reason why he ran.

"Why'd you run when you saw those guys, Sasuke-sama?" Jugo inquired curiously.

"Yeah, why?" Suigetsu snapped. "Were you..uh..._afraid?_" The water-nin always spoke his mind, even in front of an Uchiha.

"Shut up, Suigetsu, give me a break or I'll seriously be forced to have cooked kappa for dinner someday," Sasuke groaned.

Suigetsu was enraged. "I'm not a kappa, Uchiha!" he furiously pointed out. "Although I do like water." His voice trailed off as he compared himself against a kappa.

"Whatever." Sasuke's voice was quiet. Jugo had to lean in to hear what he had to say. Sasuke took a deep breath, and started to open his mouth, still staring purposely towards the ground. _Why am I acting like this? I shouldn't care, for the love of God! _

"Those guys were my teammates." Sasuke finished, leaving Jugo shocked and Suigetsu surprised. The water nin glanced at the silent, brooding Uchiha, then doubled over in laughter, slamming onto the ground. Anko was still talking at the top of her voice, apparently not noticing the three at the side, but other Genin close by shot looks of annoyance at them. Jugo waved a hand of apology at them in earnest, but Sasuke did not reply at all. He merely watched with unfocused eyes at Suigetsu.

"You were scared...of your teammates? The Rookie 9 or something like you said before?" Suigetsu choked out, unbelieving that someone as strong as Sasuke could be driven off to the point of running away from his former teammates and friends.

"So what?" Sasuke growled, shutting Suigetsu up as the Uchiha drew a kunai swiftly. He was considering lopping off Suigetsu's head right there, but he needed to get the scrolls in the forest first. After that...he should hope that he'll get matched up with the water-nin in the upcoming matches. The Uchiha put his kunai softly back into his fully-packed pouch and started to walk back to the gates, where Anko was putting finishing touches to her speech. The two others followed again, with Jugo blocking Suigetsu's way with his huge body. The water-nin looked extremely pissed, but there was nothing he could do; compared to Jugo's immense strength, Zabuza's sword looked like a mouse toy. Sasuke stationed himself quite a ways from the Rookie 9 and Team Gai, who had not noticed him, but the Uchiha couldn't help shooting a shifty glance at a particular pink-haired kunoichi standing close to the fence, just a few inches away from Anko's talking self. The long-haired Hyuga and the retarded "youthful" bowl-headed boy stood beside her. Sasuke smirked; that Hyuga's hair was still long, but he was surprised at the confidence currently being expressed on the pink haired kunoichi's face.

_Hmm...Haruno..._the Uchiha rubbed his hands in anticipation, or maybe it was just to keep his hands warmer. At any rate, perhaps this exam wasn't going to be as boring as Sasuke originally thought it would be.

* * *

OK, the Forest of Death will begin in the next chapter! It'll probably take up two chapters or more...I don't know yet.


	5. Entering the Forest

"Here you go," a Chunin mumbled, reaching out a gloved hand and holding a tightly bounded scroll in it. Sasuke Uchiha swiped it off the Chunin's hand rudely and glared at him before retreating back to his two teammates. The Chunin was shocked at the Genin's behavior, but decided not to commit anything rash just yet. After all, that rude Genin will probably perish one way or another inside the Forest of Death. He hoped that a poisonous, deadly fauna would kill the Genin with its poison just as hordes of diving flora ambush his teammates; just thinking about the gruesome scene made the Chunin laugh uncontrollably.

"Just you wait," the Chunin sniggered, stifling another outburst of laughs as he thought of an alternative way for the Genin to get brutally murdered. "This year's group is quite talented; I won't be surprised if you fail to get another scroll."

Sasuke saw that his scroll was a Heaven scroll, and he absentmindedly touched the Curse Mark of Heaven on his sore neck. He had yet to reveal his Cursed Seal form, and he wasn't planning to, although Suigetsu had been urging him to transform just to show off to the chicks. Sasuke shook his head as he glanced at Suigetsu in disgust; why did Orochimaru pair him with such a hyperactive idiot? Well, he can't blame the Snake Sannin; perverts do choose each other without thinking. The Uchiha turned his head towards the main group of exam-takers, busy looking to see if their scrolls were Heaven or the less preferred Earth one. Shouts of rage and delight filled the air as teams found out which scrolls they were holding in their hands; others, such as most of the Akatsuki, did not react, even though they had all received a Scroll of Earth, which meant they won't be assaulting each other brutally. Zetsu was grinning bloodily, licking his lips as he surveyed the group of Genin in front of him determindedly; he could use a quick snack, and those guys certainly look fit. Sasori moved to Hiruko and secretly inserted his Scroll into a hidden compartment in Hiruko's head; it was rigged with ten different traps, including a stunner gun, poison gas activator, kunai shooter, and much more, all to protect the scroll. He grinned, thinking that he's surely a genius for creating such a wonderful, useful puppet. However, it did take him fifteen years just to put the finishing touches on Hiruko. Sasori turned to Kakuzu to inform him of where he'd hidden the scroll, but he stopped. He was experiencing a weird feeling; it had overwhelmed him when he had talked with Deidara prior to the second exam, and it was really disturbing. It wasn't something suited for his puppet self, and he had certainly learned a deadly secret. Sasori thought for a brief moment, rolled up his left sleeve, and moved close to Kakuzu, who wasn't really doing anything except for thinking about Ramen.

"Yo, Kakuzu," Sasori whispered hollowly. Kakuzu yelped slightly and jumped about a foot in the air; he quickly recovered and turned, twisting tentacles sprouting simultaneously from his horribly stitched arms. His face was full of bloody murder, but when he realized it was his own teammate, he stopped, breathing hard. His eyes was engulfed in the flames of murder again, but this time the bounty hunter managed to restrain himself by counting slowly and clearly to ten. His counselor had told him to do so when he was on the verge of a violent outburst, but that was a long time ago. Kakuzu had murdered his counselor before remembering his advice; the bounty hunter proceeded to count to ten, but he couldn't ressurect his counselor. Ah well, it was a long time ago; let bygones be bygones.

"What do you want, puppet boy?" Kakuzu grunted, he was pissed that the puppet master had interrupted his beautiful reverie of Ramen. "It better be something important, or I'll use my tentacles to rip out your guts personally."

"Don't worry, Kakuzu, it's definitely important, in fact, it's even more important than your existence," Sasori joked, but he instantly regained his former expression as he glanced Kakuzu straight in his suddenly murderous eyes. "Just kidding, man, can't you take a joke?"

"No." Kakuzu replied shortly. One word was enough to sum up his rage.

"Okay." Sasori answered. He pointed at Hiruko, who was sitting immobile near the talking Itachi and Zetsu. "I've hidden our Scroll of Heaven inside Hiruko's head; it's got ten different instant-reaction traps, so I don't think we need to worry about it getting stolen. But that's not what I'm here to talk to you about, Kakuzu. Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"Um...yes." Kakuzu was actually beginning to get curious, and he was impressed that Sasori had managed to hide so many different devices and traps inside of an ugly human puppet like Hiruko; it was ingenious. For the second time in his life, Kakuzu felt stupid.

"All right. Deidara told me this earlier, while you, Itachi, and cannibal Zetsu were out visiting the village." Sasori started. He pressed a button on his exposed left puppet-arm, and a small cover slid open in the middle of the arm. Kakuzu watched, amused, as two thick wires sprouted from the empty square, and formed a high-quality screen which was lit by two shining lamps on the side. Sasori pressed a red button on the screen, and Deidara's image instantly appeared on it, as clear as a crystal.

"How much did it cost, Sasori?" Kakuzu demanded, longing for one to be built into his arm as well. It was certainly handy!

"It's expensive," Sasori replied bluntly, causing Kakuzu's face to fall grim again. The bounty hunter loved money too much. As soon as he heard Sasori say the word "expensive" out loud, he didn't want the screen anymore. Expensive was equal to hell in Kakuzu's small vocabulary.

'Anyway..." Sasori continued. "Look." The screen started to play a high-definition video, and Sasori and Deidara's images were suddenly shown. Kakuzu glanced in concentration at the subtitles somehow placed onto the screen, and gaped in shock beneath his mask as he read the next line. On the screen, Sasori swore loudly, cursed fluently, and left the grove of trees in which Deidara was standing in. The video finished, and the screen proceeded to neatly fold itself back into Sasori's puppet arm. The puppet master rolled his sleeve down to hide his arm again, and looked up at Kakuzu expectantly.

"Well?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

"Um..." Kakuzu grumbled; he was still in shock. He leaned in close to Sasori. "I never knew Deidara was gay! I thought he had his hair look like a girl's just to enter their bathrooms and glance at their bare bottoms; looks like I'm dead wrong."

"You are." Sasori confirmed. "Deidara informed me personally in the tree grove. He told me he was gay, and he was going to express his feelings to someone he has knew for a long time. I demanded to know who the person was, but guess what...yeah, it's me. I thought it was Itachi or something, but it looks like I was wrong, too. I promptly replied, "Do I know you, girl?", but Deidara was so persistent that he even asked me to go out on the spot. I obviously turned him down, and now he's been avoiding me since he's deeply hurt. After this tiring exam I'll be going to Pein's office just to tell him to rearrange the pairs. How could he pair me with a gay guy like Deidara, and how stupid is Deidara anyway, falling for a man. Not just a normal man, but a puppet man with no fu*king emotions!"

Kakuzu had been listening attentively. He shook his head in sympathy for Sasori. "Well, Deidara's really gay. End of story. I guess we can put him in the same category as that retard Hidan now. At least you don't have a retard for a partner; I'd rather take a gay guy. I'm so ugly that even gay people won't find me attractive, so I guess I'll be safe from that long-haired gaylord." The bounty hunter wasn't shy to admit his looks; he never cared about having a girlfriend, anyway.

Sasori shook his head. "Nope. Deidara told me that he's willing to go out with you too, Kakuzu. I'm afraid it's all true."

Kakuzu just stared back with his mouth wide open beneath his mask. His eyes and expression were of total, extreme shock at the gay Deidara's sick mind. Why would anyone even find his ugly face attractive? _That guy's totally mad, if I were Itachi, I'd watch out, _he thought in disbelief, thankful for his mask as it had blocked all the dirty rows of yellow teeth beneath it. He sighed and followed Sasori back into the crowd. Anko was shouting something rather loudly, and there were Chunin heading for each of the gates surrounding the looming forest, waiting to pull open the gates. The exam was about to start.

* * *

"So, what kind of scroll do they have, Suigetsu? Tell me now, or suffer my wrath." Sasuke stared expectantly at the water-nin, and his subordinate did not fail his orders, although it was a very tricky one. It had required a lot of stealth to sneak up upon Sakura Haruno; everyone knew her newly-developed strength under immense "demon-level" workouts under the 5th Hokage, Tsunade. Suigetsu could've been mistakened as a pervert and gotten beaten up badly, but thankfully, his stealth skills were so great that he managed to avoid an unfortunate fate. He now squated down so that he was eye-level to the younger Uchiha, and purposely widened his eyes just to intimidate Sasuke. It failed.

"You ain't my boss, Sasuke Uchiha," Suigetsu hissed, showing rows of sharp teeth. He poked Sasuke's forehead roughly; for a brief second, it reminded him of Itachi, somehow. His elder brother had always poked him in the forehead as a sort of habit, and he had been used to it when they were still brothers. Now that they were sworn enemies, if Itachi ever poked him again, he would personally beat him up and torture him for a month, maybe more. No one was allowed to touch Sasuke without his outright permission, but it was clear the ever-obnoxious water-nin had chosen the more dangerous route. Sasuke grabbed Suigetsu by the throat with just two fingers and proceeded to tighten his grip, choking the water-nin quite hard. Jugo watched on with no expression; Sasuke was his leader, therefore, Jugo had no right to interfere. The big man watched as Sasuke released Suigetsu, and the water-nin collapsed onto the ground, spluttering and massaging his sore throat. Sasuke glared down, and put a hand to his katana, in case Suigetsu had planned for squad mutiny. The water-nin was in no condition to do so, however.

"Speak." Sasuke ordered roughly.

"I can't, my throat's broken," Suigetsu complained, but that petty excuse earned him yet another glare from Sasuke. He finally decided to obey, because if he disagreed, he would probably be killed. If he agreed, there was a slim chance he might be spared from the wrath of the Uchiha, which had always resulted in painful results. It was wiser to obey the stronger one; that was the way of the shinobi, especially for close comrades. They weren't close at all, but Suigetsu loved his life dearly, he wasn't going to relinquish it so abruptly. Plus he wanted to rise in the ninja ranks as well; he had been a Genin for close to ten years. Totally embarrasing. Suigetsu's cheeks burned with shame as he hung as head, but he lifted them as he heard Sasuke slowly draw his razor-sharp katana. The water-nin opened his mouth hurriedly.

"All right, all right! Your ex-girlfriend's got a Scroll of Earth!" Suigetsu revealed as the katana tip stopped a half inch from his sore throat. It was close; a second later he would've been beheaded and killed. Sasuke nodded, pleased to have gotten the information he was after. He sheathed his katana back and considered his next move; perhaps revealing himself to his former teammate might be interesting. Just then, as he walked to stand under the assuring guard of Jugo, he realized what Suigetsu had just stated.

"She was not my girlfriend, you dobe!" Sasuke snarled as he leapt forward and grabbed Suigetsu in a headlock. The water-nin would've suffocated to death if a chunin had not interfered at the last second.

"Guys, break it up, will you, save it for the Forest of Death." The chunin advised, pulling Suigetsu from Sasuke's tight grasp. The water-nin collapsed onto the ground again and proceeded to bow to the chunin for saving his life from his horrid superior. He continued to hurl words of thanks to the chunin, but his savior shut him up with a swift wave of his hand. He nodded once to Suigetsu, and walked back to the gate he was stationed to open. _There's more and more gay people with every passing day, eh..._

* * *

"FROM THIS POINT ON, YOU'LL BE LOCKED IN AN ETERNAL STRUGGLE FOR YOUR PETTY EXCUSES OF A LIFE," Anko exclaimed joyfully, bouncing around and tapping random Genin on the head, especially the good-looking males, who were quite shocked by the move. Anko sometimes even touched the more inappropriate parts, but the Genin refused to retaliate, fearing that a sudden counterattack could earn themselves a fail from the perverted proctor. Itachi managed to swerve to the side and dodge Anko's sudden finger poke as the proctor headed for the front of the crowd again, tired of her actions.

"You'll be going to your assigned gates, and when I give the signal, my Chunins will let you guys into the Forest of Death," the proctor announced grandly, as if she had won the lottery instead of sending the exam-takers to probable death. "Your objective is to attack a team, or teams, holding the scroll opposite to yours. For example, if you are holding a Scroll of Heaven, you'd use some common sense and assault someone else holding a Scroll of Earth. Are your petty excuses for a brain still activated?"

Everyone raised their hands swiftly, refusing to be dubbed as stupid, except for Kakuzu, who was still deeply disturbed by Deidara's deadly secret. Sasori flicked a chakra string and Hiruko's burly right arm shot straight up like a dummy.

"Good," Anko muttered, pleased. "All right, because I want more bloodshed and brutal fights...I mean, because I want to extend the difficulty level a bit further, you cannot enter the tower until the morning of the third day in the forest, no matter what. Just think-you got your two scrolls, and it's day two, but you're suddenly ambushed by a rival team and killed! Isn't it brutal? Now give it your best shot, and stay alive, if you decide to!"

The Genin dispersed immediately, talking with their teammates about last-second strategies, survival plans, forfeiting plans, and such. The Akatsuki members bid each other good luck, and headed off to their respective gates. Itachi, Zetsu and a moody-looking Deidara arrived at their gate, which surprisingly had a huge hole near it, on a fence. The chunin guarding the gate stooding with his back to the hole, preventing them from cheating and getting a head start into the forest.

"You ready?" Sasori mumbled to Kakuzu, who nodded. The bounty hunter had finally accepted that Deidara was gay, and was determined to stay alive if he wanted to fulfill hid lifelong dream of getting money quadruple the amount currently stored in Pein's savings bank, which was a lot.

"Are you ready, dude?" Kakuzu whispered to Hiruko, who did not reply. Kakuzu shuddered while Sasori looked on in shock and shame. His teammate had asked Hiruko a question even though Hiruko was a puppet! How could anyone of Kakuzu's caliber forget such an obvious fact? Perhaps his partner was stupid deep down in his heart; people like that never revealed it because of pure cowardiness.

* * *

"You ready, Kiba, Hinata?" Shino Aburame inquired, concerned. The last time they had been in here, they had encountered Sabaku No Gaara's bloodthirsty tactics; it had terrified almost all of them out of their wits, except for Shino himself. That was probably because Shino was too calm, he didn't care about anything, because he never had to care about anything, except for his teammates' welfare and his family. "At least Gaara's not going to be in this Exam this time, nor will his two siblings; I've heard they're progressing through Sunagakure's ninja ranks like twin meteorites speeding across the universe."

"Lucky them," Kiba Inuzuka growled from the ground. He was perched on all fours; with Akamaru left at his sister's while he underwent the Exam, he needed to make up Akamaru's presence by pretending to be a dog himself. He just needed a tail, though, but Kiba had to admit it was close enough.

"I'm ready, Shi-Shino-kun," Hinata replied. Shino just nodded; it was hard to tell what the Insect User was thinking about, or what was being reflected in his eyes. Shino's eyes were always covered by dark, solid shades, and he had recently bought a hood to wear; now even his head was covered tightly, almost like a mummy. He certainly was mysterious; too mysterious, in fact. He could be thinking about murder and no one would notice.

"Good to hear it. Now...we need to target someone with an Earth Scroll," Shino mused, pushing his shades up his nose to further cover his eyes, which were almost exposed. He reached into his coat pocket, shuffled for a bit and brought out their Scroll of Heaven, which he handed to Hinata for safe keeping. His bugs might devour it by accident if he wasn't careful enough, but usually they obeyed his every command.

"Bark!" Kiba barked.

"Oh, be quiet, Kiba, we know you're not a true dog," Shino grumbled, glancing away as soon as he saw Kiba attempting to scratch himself with his back legs, like Akamaru himself. His teammate was disgusting, and there was a time when he urined in the public doggy style....Shino slapped a hand to his cheek. He wasn't going to think about it, it might make him lose his guard, and keeping his guard up was his goal for the second phase of the Chunin Exam. Of course, he would have to stay 'mysterious', as well.

* * *

"YOUTH YOUTH YOUTH YOUTH YOUTH..." Rock Lee's enthusiastic voice droned on and on for what seemd like forever.

"Shut the hell up, Lee," Neji Hyuga groaned.

"You're not youthful at all, my eternal rival," Lee declared sadly, shaking his bowl-shaped head in shame. However, he abruptly lifted his head and turned around to face Neji, smiling widely as he did so. The Hyuga prodigy was smart enough to look the other way as a blinding flash shone on his whole face; Lee's teeth never failed to flash whenever he smiled, for some strange reason.

"Hn." Neji replied as Lee continued to flash his gleaming teeth with dominance. He never stopped flashing the whole time; the whole area was lit brightly. Perhaps Rock Lee's teeth were shining more brightly than the suns' beams were.

"Youthfulness is the key to success," Lee declared, pumping his fists up and down while his bushy, dark eyebrows waggled along with his fists. The chunin at the gate stared at Lee with a look of pure shock glued onto his face.

"Stop it, Lee, the guy's looking at you," TenTen ordered, ashamed of her teammate's behavior. "Please!"

"But it's not youthful to stop~" Lee started, flashing his blinding flash, but his act was cut short on a sudden interruption. The chunins straightened up, reached into one of the many pockets on their green vests, and each pulled out a small, ivory-colored key. They strode forward towards the gates, and inserted the keys into the perfectly-shaped locks, twisting it twice. There was a loud creaking noise erupting from each of the looming gates, and the chunins grabbed a long, iron chain; with a hoist, they pulled the unlocked gates opened. The gates creaked noisily again as they swung open, revealing the Forest of Death. The second test had started.

"In you go, and best of luck to you," the chunin at Team Gai's gate smiled, beckoning them into the forest. Neji and TenTen each nodded at the chunin and jumped straight into the forest, but Lee just _had _to smile. The chunin covered his face with the whole of his arms, blocking the blinding flash. Confused on why the chunin was hiding like a baby, Lee shrugged and sprinted into the forest after his two running teammates.

"Hey! It's not youthful to ditch the Green Beast of Konoha!" Lee complained, although he still smiled widely. Several birds on the branch unfortunately were blinded by the flashing light, and they proceeded to try to escape, only to spin around in confusion and fall.

* * *

The three cloaked men rushed into the Forest of Death, with the black-haired one clutching their scroll. "Let's do this, guys," Itachi encouraged his two teammates. Zetsu nodded briefly, but Deidara actually stared at Itachi for a whole minute with something weird in his big eyes. Itachi noticed the blonde haired man's reaction to his words, and he instantly felt uncomfortable; the Uchiha jumped over Zetsu's Venus-flytrap and stood beside the caniball. He preferred to stand beside a dangerous, ravenous cannibal rather than a long-haired pillock. Deidara was still staring, as if he could see through Zetsu's heavily cloaked body, but Itachi still knew. He decided to ignore it; he was thinking way too much, in a bad way.

"You know the game plan. Zetsu, you scout ahead for us. Deidara, call up your giant clay eagle, owl, whatever-just a bird of some sort, and fly above me. That way, if a trio decides to gang up on me, you can assault them from above and Zetsu can surprise them from below, while I perform the usual Uchiha heroics. It's a good plan, eh?"

"Heroics, don't make me laugh," white Zetsu scoffed. The black half merely smirked, but they disappeared into the soil anyway.

Deidara was the complete opposite; he in fact supported Itachi. "Yeah, it's a good plan, un!" the bomber agreed, vigorously nodding his head up and down. Itachi had realized something earlier, but he wasn't sure if he was correct. If he was, then....

_I'm forgiving Itachi Uchiha, _Deidara thought. _It's all Sasori no danna's fault. Anyway, I can see why Orochimaru thought this Uchiha was hot...un. Gotta concentrate though, there's time for romance later. _With that, the bomber reached into a pouch and brought out a small clay model of a giant owl. He threw it into the sky, a huge explosion occured, and when the smoke cleared, two immense, clay-constructed wings soared out of the smoke with breezing ease. Deidara smiled and propelled himself onto the clay owl's back, where he landed safely. Today was a sunny day still, with the sun's bright rays scorching every section of the normally dark-as-night forest. Well, he'd better follow Itachi Uchiha's orders, or who knows what'll happen. He saluted Itachi, who nodded back, and Deidara steered his giant owl ahead.

* * *

"We need a Scroll of Heaven," a ninja from Kirigakure muttered to his two masked comrades. "We can't show our opponents mercy, got that, kids?"

His comrades nodded dumbly. They didn't know what mercy meant, but it was better to agree and just nod stupidly. It was better than nothing, anyways.

"Where can we get one~ah, there's one!" the first ninja exclaimed in obvious joy, an expression of relief crossing his face. He threw off his cloak, revealing battle armor underneath, with several weapons hanging from his oversized belt. The other two did the same, and stepped behind their leader, ready for a tense fight. The three Kirigakure ninja faced a single Amegakure nina with an orange spiral mask. The Amegakure ninja took one look at the three Kirigakure ninja, and his legs started to tremble in fear. His whole body, in fact, staggered; it almost looked like he was trying to flee, but something, or someone, wasn't allowing him to do so. It was sad, actually, to see the Amegakure ninja behaving like that. After a minute of staring, the masked ninja started to whine like a newborn baby.

The lead Kirigakure ninja drew a kunai from his belt and flipped it in the air before expertly catching it. "I can't handle this anymore," he stammered. "This guy's too much! His whining is unbearable, but let's finish him off anyways!" He let out a loud war scream, and charged forward, his grass sandals barely touching the ground at his extreme speed. The other two exchanged dumb glances, and followed suit anyways, screaming war cries simultaneously. The spiral masked ninja changed his whine into an enraged roar, causing the lead Kirigakure ninja to stop in his tracks, slightly stunned. He thought his opponent was a weakling; a cowardly, pathetic excuse for a shinobi. But he actually had the courage to roar in front of his face! How dare he! The Kirigakure ninja shook his fists, feeling outraged, and he drew a short sword from its sheath, holding it high up in the air so that it gleamed wickedly. The masked ninja shook his head at the sight of the sword. Was he scared, or what?

"Let's get him!" The three Kirigakure ninja took several steps forward~and was promptly tripped by a long, thick vine. They struggled to stand up, but the masked ninja was already gone. All they saw was a naked, scythe-wielding, screaming maniac swinging towards them from yet another vine-which was apparently pushed by a blue-skinned sharklike shinobi with a large bandaged sword slung on his back. The three gaped at the inappropriate sight; their faces went from normal to red, and their brains went from below average to way below average at the gruesome sight. You simply could not describe the setting of the naked ninja's bottom parts.

"It's Tarzan, he's coming to get us!" one of the Kirigakure ninjas shrieked as sweat dribbled down his nervous face. He raised his arms in an effort to shield himself from probable doom, or perhaps it was to signal surrender. His other comrade took his hand; sure enough, they were both trembling in extreme fear. Having a totally naked maniac fly at you was horrid. "What should we do?"

"Holy cow, what the hell is this shit!?" the lead Kirigakure ninja managed to gasp before he felt a razor-sharp scythe sink deeply into his neck, slicing all the way through. His two companions were still alive, but not for long. The blue-skinned man leapt down from where he stood on a tall tree branch, and landed in the hole; he grabbed both Kirigakure ninjas by their spiky hair. They were promptly tossed up onto the ground, and heard the blue-skinned man stabbing the corpse of their former leader, now nothing but something which closely resembled a pool of fresh blood. The two Kirigakure ninjas were dumbfounded by this sudden turn of events; they were so surprised and stunned that their brains weren't functioning properly; they couldn't think straight. That was why they did not get up and run for their lives; at the very moment, the naked man was advancing slowly on them, with drool hanging from his opened mouth.

"Who the hell are you, grotesque-faced dude?" one of the Kirigakure ninjas asked, pointing at his companion. "Do I know you? I don't think so."

"Nor do I." the other stupidly answered. "I'm not even going to tell you about something."

"What?"

"You're gonna die, but I'm not telling you."

At that very moment, a red scythe sliced through the air and a head smacked onto the ground, with blood pouring from the beheaded neck. The ninja's body slumped over, and the blue-skinned man strode over and began stabbing the headless body with his bandaged sword vigorously. Very vigorously, as if it was his one life's enjoyment. The last Kirigakure ninja at least knew what was going to happen next, so he did not try to run; he'd be pursued and killed anyway, as he was the slowest runner in his class. He thought for a moment as he watched the masked ninja urge the naked man on: should he let the naked guy murder him, or should he commit suicide as to preserve his honor? The Kirigakure ninja brought out a sharp kunai and selected the latter. He gulped once, and swung the kunai around with all his might, shutting his eyes tightly instantly. The kunai did pierce skin; and yes, there was blood. Unfortunately, his slice did not go all the way through. A halfway-sliced head erupted, letting out a bloodcurdling scream continuously. The pain was fu*king unbearable, and the blood, the BLOOD! It was too much! Then, a scythe finished his work for him, and the Kirigakure ninja crumpled onto the ground, releasing the scroll he was clutching tightly just minutes before. A few minutes later, the three bodies were disposed of, and the masked ninja used his kunai to slice another mark onto a stone tablet he was keeping in his cloak pocket.

"Well done, minions," Hidan the Jashinist complimented his comrades bloodily. He was feeling great; three teams so far had fallen victim to his attack. "That was the best one so far."

"This is shit, but it's fun," Kisame Hoshigaki had to admit, although his inner self was telling him not to.

"Wanna become a Jashinist, shark boy?" Hidan demanded, grinning bloodily. He strode behind a bush, and grabbed out his Akatsuki cloak, sliding into it smoothly. As he clasped the front, he said to Kisame, "We could use a fish like you to hunt down those sailor people in the vast seas. More sacrifices to Jashin-sama! Yay!"

"You're weird, sempai," Tobi mumbled. "What are we going to do next? Hunt down more people? Tobi shouldn't be doing this, Tobi is a good boy, but..." he held two thumbs up for Hidan to observe. "Tobi CAN be a bad boy if he wants to!"

Hidan smiled and he slapped Tobi high five. With his arm around the playful Akatsuki member, Hidan glanced at Kisame. "Well, more victims to go. We're five teams behind schedule. If we want to beat the record, I suggest we go now." Kisame nodded shortly and the trio leapt away, deeper into the forest, searching for more victims to slaughter brutally. They even had the scrolls of the defeated teams safely hidden in Tobi's newly-found backpack, which belonged to a Grass ninja before Hidan cut his head off.

"I'm tired of you being naked, though," Kisame smirked as he swung Samehada, dipped in blood, back onto his back. "Why can't I have a go? I bet I can make them fall unconscious instantly!" As soon as he said that, he regretted it. _Am I being influenced by Hidan? This badly? No way, I can't become this bloodthirsty! _Kisame silently groaned as he waited for Hidan's reply.

"Hn, bitch, I'm the one with the best, so I'm afraid you won't have a chance of competing against me," Hidan sneered.

"How bout me?" Tobi piped up. Hidan simply smacked him on the head, and he turned a corner. The two others followed closely; in the distance, they could see a trio of Sunagakure Genin setting up camp. The fire in the middle of the camp could be seen from far away; it was their fatal mistake, as the Akatsuki members jumped towards the three unaware Suna ninja.

_Sorry, 'Tachi, just couldn't help myself, _Kisame thought as he followed Hidan. The Jashinist had his scythe ready, his eyes filled with malice, his hands twitching at the prospect of touching blood, and his lips curled in an evil leer. With the Jashinist at the helm, things will certainly get bloodier...and probably much more gory. Kisame shook his head, he was beginning to have second thoughts, but things hadn't reached its worst level yet...

* * *

"Target: Haruno." Sasuke Uchiha spoke the two words loud and clear in a powerful tone as he held his katana at Suigetsu to prevent the water-nin from causing mischief. The two subordinates of the younger Uchiha nodded reluctantly, and they prepared to ambush the team just right in front of their hiding place high in the trees...

Sasuke grinned slightly. Showtime!

* * *

A/U: More fights and scroll-collecting in the next chapter!


	6. Forest Frenzy Pt 1

Second chapter of the forest of death! READ AND REVIEW! Thank u!

* * *

The fat ninja dropped his bag of chips as a raven-haired boy stepped into the clearing, his head held high. "Sasuke? Is that...you?" Choji Akimichi inquired, his mouth dropping open in total shock. "Why're you here?"

Sakura Haruno gasped as she heard Choji's words. The medical-nin had joined Choji and Ino's team for the Exam after Naruto and Sasuke both left to train under Jiraiya and Orochimaru, respectively. She hurriedly rushed over to the fat ninja's side, her heart pounding heavily, and followed his stunned gaze straight towards...a familar, raven-haired ninja dressed in loose, white Uchiha clothing! It was Sasuke, he was back!

"Sasuke..." Sakura whispered quietly. The boy had broke her heart before, was he back to mend it? "Why are you back, and when did you come?"

Sasuke shook his head coldly. "None of your business, Haruno."

"You remembered my name!" Sakura exclaimed joyfully. "Or rather, my surname...anyway, why are you back? For me, right? I know I'm right, oh, Sasuke!"

"No way, Jose!" Sasuke barked in disgust. "As if I would..." _Maybe I would, _Sasuke's inner self reminded him helpfully. Sasuke ignored his inner self with more disgust; he actually spat on the ground to show it.

"Then why...?" Sakura asked, a bit disappointed. Sasuke was back, though, that's all that matters! But...for what purpose?

Sasuke did not answer, for Choji was rolling towards him using his Human Boulder technique, intending on crushing his whole body if it meant getting answers from the Uchiha's mouth. Sasuke grinned and performed a series of hand seals. _So, you're attackin' first, eh? Should be fun..._

* * *

The trio zoomed through the forest swiftly like monkeys jumping from branch to branch; their feet barely touched the hard bark of the trees and their evil eyes dripped with malice, never losing their focus. The leader of the trio held a red scythe in his right hand. Hidan spied three Genin setting up camp in a clearing below, and he signaled with his scythe to make an instant attack. Kisame Hoshigaki landed on a nearby branch, and bent down, holding Samehada by the handle with his hand to make room on his wide back. The final member of the trio jumped beside Kisame and propelled himself onto the shark-nin's back with enthusiasm. He was rubbing his hands with anticipation, excited to finally have the main role in the competition-packed Akatsuki organization. Hidan-sempai had dubbed the hyperactive Akatsuki member as the "bait." Tobi wasn't sure what "bait" meant, but he was always the first one to confront the unfortunate victims; the one who got chased, the one who had the victims attack first to cause a definite downfall for them. It sure was exciting, and he wasn't nervous at all. After all, Tobi had experience running from Deidara-sempai's constant bombings, and his clay birds were known for their extreme flying speeds. Running like the wind was an easy feat for the masked member to accomplish, and that was why Hidan made him the "bait"; Kisame was too slow, like a turtle, and Hidan never ran from anything, unless he was really, really terrified, which almost never happened. Hidan raised his scythe and drove it onto the tree trunk with huge force. Hordes of green leaves started to float down from the big impact the scythe had caused on the tree, and Kisame took the chance to bend over and hurl the screaming Tobi downwards with all the might in his burly body.

"BOW DOWN TO THE KING!" Tobi screamed loudly as he drifted downwards, crashing and rending branches while suffering constant touchings from nearby falling leaves, which easily annoyed the masked Akatsuki member. He crashed onto a branch and ripped his left cloak sleeve, but it was all right; it was no big loss at all. After all, the victims were just a few meters from him now. He took a deep breath, glanced up at Hidan for the signal, and prepared to jump again. Jumping from a high elevation was always an unpleasant and painful experience, but thankfully his legs had all the strength he needed to accomplish the feat, even though it still stung everytime he landed hard on the ground. The percentage of landing perfectly with no broken bones was relatively low, but Tobi's was relatively high. He didn't know that, but he was thankful for it, nevertheless; that was why he never tried to be scared, he was always giddy as he sailed through the air towards the fast-approaching ground.

Tobi bent down, ready to propell himself down. He couldn't fail this one! The angle was slightly difficult, but he was sure he would succeed; after all he's an Akatsuki member, and Akatsuki members don't fail on anything! Tobi placed his hands together to signify a sign of peace.

"GERONIMO!" he bellowed, voice cracking slightly as he jumped off the branch.

Meanwhile, Hidan was busy stripping and Kisame was occupying himself with getting Samehada ready for chakra-draining and skin-shedding. Hidan finally tossed his Akatsuki cloak against the tree trunk, pulled his scythe free from where it had stabbed itself, and rubbed his body all over to get warmed up for the upcoming fight. Hidan always felt pleasure when he did the pre-game ceremony of rubbing his nude body, he didn't know why, but he liked it anyways. The Jashinist grinned, his eyes burning to kill, his hands twitching for watery blood to grasp. Perhaps Jashin-sama gave him all this because of his faithfulness! At any rate, the Jashinist glanced over at Kisame, who was just standing up. The shark nin nodded shortly, running a hand through his blue, spiky hair roughly. Hidan squinted his eyes down at Tobi's fast-falling figure, and nodded as well, ready for action to begin.

"Let's go, shark boy. We'll give those dudes hell, right?" The two gulped slightly and jumped. You couldn't blame them for gulping, they never had the courage Tobi had stored in his body. Or perhaps it was just pure carefulness; Tobi was carefree and lax. The two Akatsuki members tried their hardest not to scream as their bodies went rigid and their eyes went bulging, trying to burst free from the widened sockets. It was torture! Falling from such an elevation was thrilling, but Kisame was far too scared to move an inch of his muscle. Hidan, meanwhile, closed his eyes at last, his mouth widening into a slow grin as he smashed open a tree branch; his privates had never felt so free before!

* * *

"Katon, Goukakyuu No Jutsu! Take that, punk!" A burning ball of fire scorched across the yellow ground, marking its long trail with fast-spreading smoke. Choji Akimichi took the fire jutsu full force and collapsed onto a tree, unconscious. His stamina sucked. The fireball exploded as it slammed Choji onto the tree, and when the smoke cleared, Choji was lying facedown, his clothes tattered and smoke rising from his limp body like ashes coming from a burned out fireplace.

"Oh my god, Choji Akimichi, you seriously do suck!" Ino exclaimed, although her wide eyes showed pure fear in them. It was quite obvious if one had chosen to look deeply and directly at the pair of eyes, but no one ever did. Seriously.

Choji rolled over to lie on his back; it was much more comfortable. The fat ninja wasn't actually unconscious, as his immense amount of fat had saved his body from getting terribly burned out by the raging fireball. But he thought he'd do a Shikamaru Nara and pretend to be unconscious; it not only provided him with some time to rest comfortably, but it also took him out of the surely brutal fight which was coming up quick. However, Choji thought he'd do some sleep-talk as it was his habit when unconscious or asleep, just to make it seem more real. His mind was blissful and at solitude; this was the life, Shikamaru certainly had the brains to think of this awesome strategy! Choji was about to drift off to sleep for real, just to block out the sounds of his comrades screaming in agony or insulting his pathetic skills, but a foot prevented that. Someone laughed evilly; the laugh was quite near Choji's body, and the fat ninja was suddenly alert even though his eyes were closed. Before he could react, though, another fast-falling foot smashed onto his private part with such force that Choji thought he was going to perish for sure, just to end the continuous waves of jolting agony. The foot turned a whole three hundred and sixty degrees, lifted itself, and went down again, this time much harder and accurate than the previous attempt. Choji felt pure hell right then, even his fat couldn't protect him from those kinds of cowardly attacks!

"HOLY FU*K, AAAAAAAAAAARGH!" Choji shrieked. He kept screaming until he felt someone's fist smash into his head, knocking him out at last. Choji Akimichi drifted off into a peaceful sleep, safe from the torturous agony of the battle raging around him; he couldn't feel a thing now!

The person who stomped on Choji's private part lifted his foot and stepped a few inches backwards, surveying his work with great satisfication, and a bit of glory. _Not everyone could put a fatso like Choji to unconsciousness, _Sasuke Uchiha thought, smiling widely and brushing a hand through his hair, messing it up. It was a personal habit of his, messing up his raven hair, because it simply felt good. He was wild; his hair must be wild as well!

"Now, whose turn is it?" Sasuke growled, turning away from the unconscious Choji to face the two girls sitting against a tree, clutching each other in unmasked fear and terror of the might of the Uchiha clan. Sasuke decided the scene must be more dramatic, and he took a slow step forward, stealthily drawing a sharp kunai from his pouch with his left hand, twirling it when he got it out just to make the two girls even more scared. Suigetsu and Jugo stood behind their leader, watching the scene with rising interest. Sasuke never bullied a girl no matter what; it was a first, so it should be interesting. Suigetsu stood up, stepped over Zabuza's big weapon, and grabbed his pouch up to his face. He shuffled a hand in it, brought out a small bag of chips and slumped back onto the ground next to the silent, brooding Jugo. He lifted the chip bag to Jugo's face and waved it around, greatly pissing the bigger man off; he was watching a fight scene, not a bag of chips scene!

"You want a chip, Juggy?" Suigetsu offered, trying to be helpful for the silent man's sake. He seemed so lonely sometimes; it even depressed Suigetsu's humurous nature, and that was no easy feat to accomplish. The water nin decided that offering a lonely person some chips could help brighten their spirits a bit. "One wouldn't hurt."

Jugo ignored him.

Suigetsu opened his mouth to make the offer again, but decided against it. No use talking to a mute. Suigetsu shrugged, leaned back against the tree, and stuffed a handful of chips into his mouth, chomping loudly just to annoy Jugo. His eyes set on Sasuke's advancing back as he continued to eat enthusiastically; the fight was about to start, and the fight was not an ordinary one. It was one which consisted of two former teammates, and two of Sasuke's former fangirls which he never chose to punish for constant pesterings of him. Sasuke Uchiha had finally changed his stubborn mind; Orochimaru the Snake Sannin's influence was deadly, and violence was a normal part of Sasuke's daily life now. Even his mind rested on violence, fights, wars, bloodshed, and distorted bodies, as Orochimaru taught all his subordinates to savor the unreplaceable violence. Sasuke had changed from a normal, handsome, non-aggressive boy into an unusual, okay-looking, aggressive, violented, demented man bent on extracting revenge. Suigetsu sighed; life does slip fast by your nose when you're not counting.

"Sas-Sasu-Sasuke-kun," Sakura Haruno whispered defeatedly, her eyes reflecting deep sadness as she recognized her long-lost teammate. "Is that you...?" How in the world did Sasuke manage to sneak into Konohagakure via the Chunin Exams? Should she feel happy and joyful or sad and depressed now that her teammate's right in front of her? Probably the latter, since Orochimaru the shitbag had probably influenced him one way or another. Sakura sighed; she was going to bring Sasuke back no matter what it takes, as she still had remnants of feelings for the Uchiha. _Naruto, come help me decide what I should do, _Sakura desperately thought as she set her eyes on Sasuke's form.

In Ino's mind, Sasuke wasn't Sasuke. He was not Sasuke anymore, perhaps she should call him Orochimaru Junior from now on. She couldn't believe she had a crush on someone who defected from their village so willingly! Those kind of people cannot be forgiven, and Ino pondered whether to kill him or not. She couldn't, though, her skills hadn't improved one bit, and she still ultimately sucked in close combat. She turned her head and glanced at Sakura slightly; she was surprised at the heat radiating from the pinked-hair kunoichi's body. Sakura clearly was going to match up against Sasuke.

"Obviously, are you blind or what?" Sasuke Uchiha snarled, waving a hand shortly to acknowledge Sakura's greeting. It was puny greeting, but it was one nevertheless, and Sasuke was bound to follow the Uchiha rules for being polite. "Do you want my Sharingan to improve your eyesight, or what? Answer me!" Sakura flinched slightly; Sasuke was treating her like she was a vagabond living in the city dump. She wasn't going to sit here and listen to a spoilt traitor insult her evilly; she was going to fight back like a man! How Sakura wished she was a man, standing tall in the face of fear, especially in this situation where she was about to face off against her former crush and teammate. Sasuke had turned from a desirable boy into an undesirable, wretched, Orochimaru-washed man! Sakura shook Ino's surprised and scared arms off roughly and stood up, shaking her head in disappointment; she was going to have to punch a hole in Sasuke's chest just to feel satisfied! Sakura tightened her black gloves and glared back at Sasuke, directly in the Uchiha's red Sharingan with malice, her feet firmly on the ground, not even shaking one bit.

"Well, answer me, you little daughter of a bit*h!" Sasuke taunted, starting to dance in an annoying fashion. Sakura's face transformed into a deep frown; she used to think that Sasuke's dance made the Uchiha look vastly adorable, but she didn't care one bit now. She was going to take Sasuke to the Hokage at once! She shuddered just thinking about the time when she cried her head off because Sasuke had left her village after knocking her out so brutally.

"Answer me!" Sasuke continued to chant, waggling his eyebrows up and down quickly. Suigetsu suddenly stood up and flung his bag of chips onto the ground, even though it was adding to his increasing amusement at Sasuke's treatment of his former fangirls. "Uchiha, watch out, there's a witch coming to get you! Seriously!"

Sasuke turned around nimbly, surprised; he didn't even see what was coming, but he did feel one heck of a punch from Sakura Haruno. It sank deeply into his cheek, and Sakura finished the sudden attack by raising her left foot high and driving it heavily onto Sasuke's chest, sending the Uchiha slamming onto the ground painfully; Sakura felt bliss at last. However, she knew Sasuke wasn't finished; sure enough, Sasuke slowly stood up, his eyes now free of playtime and full of seriousness. It was time for the usual Uchiha heroics in which the Uchiha guy rebounds from a loss and wins the fight with ease!

Sasuke drew out his katana swiftly and held it menacingly in front of him, his hands tight and alert. He raised his head high and proud, and started to run forward slowly. "Get ready for the Uchiha heroics!" Sasuke announced grandly as he raised his sharp katana higher; the sun's rays gleamed off it so brightly that Sakura felt that she was looking at a light saber or something similar. If it sank into flesh, it was going to hurt, so Sakura decided to avoid it as long as possible.

The katana stabbed forward, its speed not losing one bit to a racecar zooming across a wide track. Suigetsu leaned forward quickly, almost to the verge of collapsing, trying to grasp the sight of Sasuke stabbing his former girlfriend brutally. Sakura's eyes widened as the katana neared her body...what should she do?

* * *

The cloaked man spun around on one foot, narrowly dodging the Beast-nin who had tried to slash him across the leg. "Katon: Housenka No Jutsu!" Itachi stated as he breathed out small balls of fire, which zoomed at the Beast-nin on the Uchiha's left side. Kiba Inuzuka's instincts were very fast, so naturally he easily avoided each of the six Phoenix Flower fireballs flying at him by scampering all over the place rapidly. Using his hands, Kiba Inuzuka scampered up a tree trunk and jumped off the branch straight at Itachi Uchiha, who was standing there immobile, watching Kiba's every move. Itachi sent out another barrage of Housenka No Jutsu, but Kiba dodged once more; he landed right beside the surprised Itachi, who was shocked at the Genin's nimble speed. Perhaps the Beast-nin's speed was even more superior than his. Kiba jumped up to upright position, and prepared to attack as he bared his fangs and extended his sharp, claw-like fingernails roughly.

"Fang over...um....nothing!" Kiba yelled as he turned into a whirling, grey tornado. He was about to unleash his trademark Fang over Fang attack, but due to Akamaru's lack of presence, he could only perform the much weaker Fang over Nothing. _Damn it Akamaru, why'd I leave you home? _Kiba complained silently as he zoomed at Itachi with the best of his speed, which was extremely fast. Itachi quickly jumped out of the way and Kiba drilled a hole in the spot where Itachi was standing just a second ago; the Beast-nin instantly retaliated and zoomed up again towards the Uchiha, who had positioned himself on top of a particulary thick branch, locked in combat stance. Itachi performed a series of hand seals, and pursed his lips again for an attack.

Kiba zoomed at Itachi with all his might, aiming for the Uchiha's chest, where he was planning to blow a hole in.

"Take this, dog boy! Katon, Goukakyuu No Jutsu!" Itachi shouted, placing his lips between two of his slim fingers and breathing out an immense, blazing sphere of pure fire. The Uchiha's trademark attack, the Great Fireball, rumbled its way across the air and promptly engulfed Kiba with flames. The Beast-nin stopped spinning in midair, and suddenly lost altitude, screaming in pain as he collapsed heavily onto the ground. Itachi leapt off the branch and drew three Kunai; he quickly hurled them at the downed Kiba, aiming for his vital organs. Itachi smiled as he landed on the ground, waiting for the coming tragedy when he'd murdered the Beast-nin who had so foolishly challenged him one-on-one. Thinking of one-on-one, Itachi raised his eyebrows and glanced around the clearing as the Kunai neared Kiba's body, their sharp tips gleaming wickedly, waiting to be soaked in fresh blood. _Where's that cannibal of a venus flytrap and that long-haired gaylord, anyway? _Itachi scanned the area quickly for any signs of his traitorous teammates; Deidara and Zetsu had ditched him, with their own manuevering methods. And yes, Itachi had long since figured out that Deidara was nothing but a gay man.

Just then, a black cloud of something covered Kiba's body and deflected the three Kunai thrown at him. Itachi spun around, his expression widening in shock, as his eyes focused acutely at the black cloud of somethings. Itachi squinted his eyes as he heard rapid footsteps coming his way; on closer inspection, the cloud was not a cloud of somethings, it was a bunch of chakra-eating insects!

"Show yourself, Aburame," Itachi demanded loudly. He heard the footsteps stop abruptly, somewhere to his right. Itachi knew that it was an Aburame who had sent the insects, because only the Aburame clan would allow insects to infest their already-rotten body so willingly, and even lovingly sometimes. It disgusted the Uchiha as he turned to face the tall bush standing straight on his right; Itachi focused on the spot and sent a Great Fireball burning its way to havoc. As he suspected, the swarm of insects quickly flew over, as fast as the wind, and blocked the fireball from burning the Aburame shinobi. Sure enough, Shino Aburame revealed himself, standing up behind the bush with his hands in his pockets; he looked as calm as ever, even Itachi was impressed by his lack of worrying. If you're brave enough to let insects live in your body 24/7, why would you be afraid of anything else?

"If you fight me, you'll never fight as a shinobi again," Shino Aburame explained calmly, his hands still in his pockets. It was as if the bug-user was afraid to let his hands feel the temperature outside of the garment's protection. "I mean it. It's for your own good. Just leave this place and be done with it."

"Give us your scroll too, whi-while you're at it," Hinata Hyuga added softly, standing behind Shino for protection.

"No way." Itachi shot back.

"Yes way." Shino replied, calmly as always. His insects started to spread out, probably getting ready to assault the elder Uchiha by rudely eating his chakra.

Itachi shrugged slightly. Who do these puny kids think they are, speaking like an experienced Jonin to him? Itachi Uchiha, the former ANBU Black Ops captain, the wielder of the Mangekyo Sharingan, a renowned member of the criminal organization Akatsuki! Why would he let these kids speak to him so rudely? Kids these days...they need to grasp the concept of thinking first, and then acting it out, or it'd surely mean their downfalls. Itachi started to perform another series of hand seals, and he glanced straight at Shino, who might've glanced back. No one knew what was behind those dark shades of his.

Shino glanced at the heavily cloaked figure in front of him---then all was darkness. Ah, there's light again. Wait, where is this place? _Huh? Aren't I in the Forest of Death, facing a cloaked man, protecting Kiba from death? _Shino wondered as he glanced around. He was standing on a beach---and there were people rushing towards him like leopards leaping across a wide savanna. _Holy cow...O-M-G...._Shino looked on as he saw five particulary hot ladies wearing bikinis striding towards him slowly, their hands outstretched and their mouths smiling joyfully. Shino almost blushed, but he stopped himself in time. That was when he got pummelled by the five women simultaneously. Boy, their attacks were hard and pleasureable at the same time. Shino couldn't take it, as he's such a cold-blooded figure with barely any time for fun. He screamed and screamed, never stopping as he was forced closer to the ground by his attackers. _Where the hell am I? What the heck is happening!? _He felt eager hands tugging at his heavy coat...

"NOOOO! STOP THAT! DON'T TAKE OFF MY CLOTHES!" Shino whined in horror as he collapsed onto his two knees, clutching his shaking head in his trembling hands. "PLEASE!" Hinata looked at the bug-user in fear and wonder. What was happening to him?

Itachi grinned gleefully to himself as he stepped forward, drawing another kunai quietly. _That stupid fool...I wonder how he's suffering in my genjutsu? Hehehehe, I guess it's time to clean up the mess and get their scroll. _

"Shino-kun! Are you all right? Are you?" Hinata desperately asked the screaming Shino, who was now wrapping his arms around his coat, yelling about protecting his skin from wandering hands of doom. The Hyuga wasn't that worried about Shino's condition, she knew Shino could take care of himself as he's such a powerful shinobi. On the other hand, with Kiba still unconscious, Shino was the only one who could defend her in this situation. The cloaked man was coming...should she fight or run like a coward? Suddenly, as Hinata faced the cloaked man, she remembered Naruto's courage.

"Believe it!"

* * *

"Are we playin' skins? How youthful! YOSH!" Rock Lee screeched, pummeling Hidan on the bare chest with his feet. The Jashinist slammed onto a tree trunk and slid down, hurt by the force of the kick. From the looks of that bowl-shaped youth-screaming boy, he was a taijutsu expert, and Hidan considered himself a taijutsu expert as well. Well, maybe not, because he used weapons, and the kid was using his bare fists and feet. No matter, Jashin-sama would have wanted a kill, even if it was done by a weapon against a fellow taijutsu master.

Hidan's naked ambush had failed. When he charged into the clearing, screaming at the top of his lungs while being completely nude, Rock Lee had charged forward, yelling about youthfulness and stripping his clothes off while he charged. Now Lee and Hidan were locked in naked-to-naked combat, which Lee had dubbed "Skins." Hidan was sadly losing, and his crotch had been slammed on far too many times. He was gravely injured, but it was fortunate that he couldn't die. Hidan grabbed his scythe from where it had been knocked onto the ground, and held it straight up at the coming Rock Lee.

"YOSH!" Lee cheered as he did a somersault and dodged the striking scythe; he landed beside Hidan and kicked the Jashinist in the face, causing Hidan's nose to erupt with flowing blood. Lee continued his performance by delivering a wicked uppercut; he finished it off with a roundhouse kick, knocking Hidan onto a tree. Hidan collapsed onto the ground, moaning slightly in pain. The kid was too much.

"Scroll please," Lee begged Hidan, his eyes watering. His hands were clasped in a respective manner, and his teeth were showing...FLASH! Hidan closed his eyes quickly at the upcoming blinding flash exerted from Lee's teeth. What the hell was this technique? "Please! Us youthful youths playing Skins should respect each other and grant each other's requests!"

Hidan merely ignored Lee as he staggered up to full height again, taking care not to look at Lee's teeth, but his time standing up was brief. Lee struck him down with yet another wicked uppercut, and continued to talk about youth, youth, and youth! Hidan was getting extremely irratated by this loudmouth kid as he stared moodily at the ground; he might have to resort to using his "curse" now...but it was a total disgrace to curse such a worthless taijutsu shinobi! Hidan grabbed his scythe tightly, and blocked Lee's kick hurriedly by raising his arms high. Hidan charged forward, swinging his scythe wickedly, his eyes set one inch above Lee's teeth. _It's my turn, bowl-shaper! Let me show you MY youth! _

Meanwhile, Kisame Hoshigaki was taking on two Genin at once. Tobi had long since ran away in fear when his "baiting" failed, and now Kisame was having trouble beating a long-haired boy and a panda-look alike girl. He swung Samehada and managed to cause the two Genin fighting him to jump backwards. The shark-nin felt pure hatred towards Hidan now, it was all the Jashinist's fault by attacking that hyperactive bowl-shaped kid. As pissed as Kisame was, he was still serious when battling, so he swung Samehada and missed the long-haired boy-or was it a girl, he wasn't sure-by a mere inch. It was then that Kisame realized that Samehada had been embedded into a particulary thick tree trunk, and he could not pull Samehada out. Kisame used all his strength, his muscles bulged and his face turned purple, but he still failed; all he managed to achieve was a kick from the panda-look alike girl at the chest, sending him crashing onto the ground in pain. Kisame stood up swiftly, feeling extreme anger. _Eff you, Hidan, but I'll get out of this alive..! You too, Tobi!_

_"_Come on, TenTen, let's finish this ugly guy off once and for all!" Neji Hyuga ordered, his hands glowing with the chakra of the Gentle Fist.

"As if you're any more handsome, long-haired gender bender!" Kisame insulted rudely as he plunged Samehada into the ground, freeing his hands to perform a water jutsu. Looks like he's going to have to waste some valuable chakra on mere Genin. "You, too, girl who looks like a panda!"

TenTen almost lost her grip on her kunai. "I do not!"

"Don't insult her, shark-boy!" Neji screamed, outraged. "She's my...uh...never mind!" TenTen was looking at the Hyuga prodigy suspiciously, but Neji chose not to finish his sentence. Now wasn't the right time.

"Whatever, I'll finish you off anyways." Kisame grinned devillishly. "Suiton, Suikodan No Jutsu!" Kisame placed a hand on the nearby stream, and a blast of water shot up, sending a Shark Missile flying at the two prepared Genin, its mouth wide open. The Shark Missile's teeth-filled jaws were large enough to swallow a teenager whole. "Die to my sharkie here, kiddos!"

* * *

Shikamaru Nara, proctor for the final test of the Chunin Exams and the preliminaries, sat in the tower, watching the fluffy clouds float lazily across the sky. "It's so troublesome waiting for those guys to get here..." Shikamaru grumbled as he leaned back to lie down, thinking about all the troublesome duties he had received for being a proctor. "They should be the strongest bunch here, so they should reach this tower fairly quickly. I need some company..." Little did Shikamaru know that the Akatsuki were the _strongest _among the mix of Genin currently undergoing the exam...

* * *

READ AND REVIEW PLEASE! Thank you! Probably one more chapter in the Forest of Death, then the prelims.


	7. Forest Frenzy Pt 2

Sorry for taking such a long time to update! I was pretty busy, but now that I have time, I can continue again :)

R&R PLZ! Thanks :D

* * *

"It's time to finish this thing off!" Kiba Inuzuka growled in righteous anger. "Let's go, Shino!"

Team Kurenai was still fighting Itachi Uchiha in the Forest of Death. Hinata had bravely stood up against the might of the Uchiha, and she managed to free Shino from the genjutsu he was trapped in, by jabbing Itachi squarely on the chest with a Gentle Fist attack. A normal person would've died or fallen into unconsciousness right there, their chakra flow stopped right in the center of their heart, but Itachi performed the Uchiha heroics, managing to stay upright. He then knocked Hinata unconscious with a Goukakyu No Jutsu, and his chakra was still flowing swiftly all over his body. Uchihas were scary.

"All right, Kiba," Shino replied calmly, his hands once more stuck in his pockets. The genjutsu was something of a cross between heaven and hell; part of him wanted to break out and return to assist his teammates against their unknown foe, but the other half insisted on staying with those hot girls. Hinata had broken the genjutsu just as the girls stripped off Shino's coat and was trying to get his shades off. Shino had desperately fought like a wild caveman; an Aburame must wear their sunglasses forever, 24/7, every day of their life. If it was taken off, it'd mean they're too worthless to continue being an Aburame. However, the girls had tried every possible tactic to try persuade Shino to get his sunglasses off; they had even attempted to unclasp their bikinis. Shino had watched with horror and facisnation before Hinata broke the genjutsu; now he was trying to get his dignity back. He had his normal posture back, and even his expression had returned. It's time for some gory action; fun and games are over.

Itachi watched the two of them wearily. Genin never knew when to give up. "Now, now, kiddos, do you really want to fight me full on? You'll never live to see tomorrow, I assure you."

"Eff you," Kiba aggressively answered, baring his fanglike teeth menacingly, trying to intimidate Itachi. As usual, being an Uchiha, he was unfazed by the attempt.

"Katon: Goukakyu No Jutsu!" Itachi yelled, breathing out a fireball. It was the biggest one yet; smoke was rising out from the sides of his lips, which were slightly grazed with ashes. Not to mention it was slightly burnt. This Goukakyu was ment to KO Shino and Kiba, so it had taken Itachi's biggest efforts in order to send it out. Now his lips were smoking; however, Itachi did not care. He was too handsome, it didn't matter a bit; as long as the Uchiha blood still flows in his veins, he considered himself worthy of being god.

"Is Goukakyu No Jutsu the only jutsu you know?" Shino demanded. "Just asking, nothing personal, man."

"Shut up, gangster," Itachi sneered. "It's a freakin' fireball that's about to burn your ass into ashes."

"I don't even think you have balls," Kiba growled back, defending his teammate. He roughly pointed a clawed finger at Itachi's robe bottom, and drew two small circles in the air with his free hand, smiling while he did so. Boy did that cloaked guy look pissed off. Suddenly, Shino pointed in front of Kiba, and the two of them noticed the fireball coming at them. It was within a few meters of their bodies!

Kiba and Shino watched the immense fireball blaze by, and suddenly Kiba gave the signal by raising his middle fingers simultaneously. Itachi took it as a deep insult while Shino took it as a normal signal; he was prepared to attack. Kiba rushed towards Shino and quickly performed a series of hand signs. Shino watched as his teammate jumped into the air and landed in front of him, about to perform his ultimate jutsu. Suddenly, the Aburame had second thoughts about Kiba's plan, he tried to escape, but being as slow as a turtle, Kiba easily caught up with his retreating back.

"Inuzuka Style: Konbi Henge!" (literally meaning, Combination Transformation) Kiba bellowed loudly, and a huge cloud of smoke burst out of nowhere, engulfing both the struggling Shino and the excited Beast-nin himself. Itachi watched, slightly impressed that a Genin knew this jutsu, but was more shocked that the beast which emerged moments later easily broke his Goukakyu No Jutsu into millions of fireballs, with a single swipe. Itachi squinted his eyes as the sound of scampering feet rapidly headed towards him; the beast did not look like a normal beast at all. He had heard that Inuzuka Konbi Henge techniques consisted of them combining with a ninja dog and transforming into a gigantic two-headed wolf. However, this certainly wasn't the case here, no way. What was rapidly charging towards the Uchiha was a gigantic two-headed beast with a wolf's white body; the heads were the ones which shocked Itachi the most. The left head was a hound dog's while the right one was a sunglasses-wearing bug's head. It certainly looked horrid.

"What the fuck, Kiba," Shino snarled in frustration. "Why did you make me a disgraceful bug? Let me try experiencing being a dog for once!"

Kiba simply ignored Shino and continued forward, hurriedly increasing his pace. He was SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, perhaps even faster. Kiba's eyes directed on Itachi's stunned self, and he forcefully pulled Shino's bug half along with him brutally.

"This is bad," Itachi remarked, scratching his head. The beast looked insulted, and without warning, it lashed out a monstrous paw at him, intending to crush the life out of his body.

Itachi quickly performed a series of rapid hand seals and managed to dodge the dog-wolf-bug beast's ferocious swipe at his head. He glanced at the scattered fireballs around the area, and shouted, "Katon: Housenka No Jutsu!" The fireballs instantly all zoomed at the dog-wolf-bug beast, which easily dodged due to its otherworldly speed. Itachi couldn't see the beast at all; all he could hear was a humming sound, and all he could view with his Sharingan was a gigantic white blur. It was time to use the Mangekyo Sharingan, or else he would not have a chance at the Uchiha Heroics. As Itachi focused his chakra on his Sharingan with all his might, he couldn't help feeling disappointed and even a bit grim. _I can't believe I'm about to waste my super Mangekyo Sharingan on two mothereffing Genin...ah, the shame! The disgrace of it all! Why me?_

Suddenly, Itachi's tightly-shut eyelids flew open, and inside the milky-white sockets was...the MANGEKYO SHARINGAN!

"TSUKUYOMI!"

* * *

The Sunagakure ninja strode forward, drawing a kunai slowly from his pouch. The ninja stood up to his full height and glanced determindedly at his opponent's ugly face; it was truly too ugly to be human. "Give us your scroll, and we'll spare you and your comrades, all right?"

Hiruko was silent.

"Reply!"

Silence.

"Are you like, deaf, man?"

Silence, of course.

"Are you mentally retarded or something?" The Suna ninja exclaimed, throwing his hands up in disbelief at Hiruko's stupidty. Or rather, his continued silence.

"He can't talk," Sasori explained tiredly as he strode towards the three Suna ninja. "He's got a speech problem."

"Oh," the Sunagakure ninja replied. "Have you, like, thought of getting special one-on-one private lessons for that fatty over there?"

"No," Sasori grunted. He was angered that the ninja insulted his favorite human puppet, and death was the only thing coming for the three unfortunate fellas. Should he use Hiruko's AK-47s, the nuclear bomb hidden in Hiruko's inner shell, or the Peter Piper's Perfected Poison O' Instant Death smudged on the puppet's tail to finish the Suna ninja off? Sasori decided for a while as he watched the ninjas continue to taunt Hiruko, and he decided to use his trademark poison to leave his mark, instead of using his Nuclear Bomb. He quickly flicked an invisible chakra string, and Hiruko's scorpion-like tail slowly uncurled itself from where it was hidden beneath the billowing black cloak draped around the puppet's body; the Peter Piper's Perfected Poison O' Instant Death glowed brightly on the tail's tip; it was slowly dripping purple liquid onto the ground. If Sasori did not make his move soon, the green grass they were standing on could soon become yellow, decayed grass. That was the power of Peter Piper's poison.

"In fact, this "fatty" is going to make you a "skeleton" in a matter of seconds."

The Suna ninja's companions hurried up to their leader, and the leader glanced aggressively at Hiruko again, completely oblivious of what Sasori had just stated. His companions joined in the taunting, pointing at Hiruko and hurling raspberries at the puppet's unblinking eyes. Any sane ninja would've figured out something was wrong by now, simply by looking at the unblinking eyes; if it was a normal human being, he would've set the world record for longest time without blinking once. The Suna ninjas laughed heartily, slapping each other high wave, unaware of what was about to happen.

Sasori was deeply annoyed by now; he flicked the chakra string again and the tail started to move out from inside the cloak. "I said, the fatty's going to avenge himself!"

"He can't talk, he's fat, and he's ugly. What can he possibly do to a handsome guy like me?" the lead Suna ninja boasted, smiling brightly. His companions continued to laugh, taunt, sneer, snarl, and leer at Hiruko, who did not stir. Sasori flicked the string for the final time, and the tail shot out rapidly, as fast as a missile zooming towards its point-blank target. It swished through the air, curved wickedly once, and embedded itself in the lead Suna ninja's chest.

The last thing he felt was an immense, sharp-tipped tail striking deeply into his heart and pulling it out brutally; the tip stabbed clean through the still beating organ, and practically ripped it out like it was nothing but a dying twig. Blood gushed all over the place, and the Suna ninja collapsed instantly, splashing the pool made out of his own ruby-red blood. Hiruko's tail continued beating the ninja until all of his bones were shattered into millions of tiny pieces; his skin was also pulled out violently; not a single inch was missed. Sasori had really made the ninja into a "skeleton." Meanwhile, Kakuzu had strangled the two other Suna ninjas to death; the final one dropped their scroll, and Sasori hurriedly grabbed it before safely placing it inside Hiruko's ten-trapped rigged secret compartment along with their original scroll.

Kakuzu dropped the final Suna ninja onto the ground and glanced at the bodies with interest. Cash signs started to pop up inside his cash-filled mind. "How much d'you think these guys would fetch at the bounty station, Sasori?"

"If you bring them to the bounty station, your cashier's going to demand a refund," Sasori answered, uninterested now that the two of them's got two scrolls, therefore granting them automatic entry into the next phase of the Chunin Exam. He looked at Kakuzu wearily; his words had a huge effect on the bounty hunter, and Kakuzu's face was now deeply shaped in a sad frown. The cash signs which had popped up in his mind had long since vanished.

"You sure?"

"Pretty much. Let's head for the tower, I don't like waiting."

Kakuzu grimly nodded, and followed Sasori and Hiruko deeper into the forest. They had gone no further than ten steps when suddenly a blur of enraged blonde gayness leapt out from a nearby dense bush, its hands outstretched in joy. Kakuzu stopped, stunned, and shouted out a quick warning. Being extremely vigilant, Sasori managed to notice the ambusher, and he quickly attempted to dodge. The attacker-detector he had installed on Hiruko's nose started to beep loudly, sensing an inappropriate figure in the two Akatsuki members' midst.

Deidara had thrown himself at the puppet master with all his might, and Sasori valiantly ducked in time, narrowly avoiding being humped full force by the blonde-haired gaylord.

"Dude, Deidara....what the hell was that?" Kakuzu asked, amused that Deidara had tried to ambush Sasori.

"Sasori no danna, why'd you leave me?" Deidara gasped, tears streaming down his face. He walked quickly at Sasori, who rapidly backed up until he bumped hard into the bark of an oak tree. Damn it, he was cornered. Why'd the tree have to be here?

"Get over it man, it was a few hours ago!" Sasori screeched. "Leave me alone!"

"Not until you show me your balls..."

Kakuzu was surprised to learn that Deidara was gay, but now he was even more surprised to hear that Deidara was a pervert on the rise. Looks like that traitorous Orochimaru had some competition at last, eh?

The puppet master tried in vain to find a way out of the jam, but sadly it was impossible. The mouths of Deidara's palms were sticking their wet tongues out at Sasori, apparently making fun of him. How dare they!

Sasori sighed, quickly connecting a chakra string onto Hiruko. He was going to escape somehow, probably with the assistance of Hiruko. "Let me tell you now, Deidara, I ain't afraid to admit that I haven't got no mothereffing balls!"

"You don't?" Deidara asked, surprised.

"You _don't?" _Kakuzu demanded in horror, staring at Sasori's body in shock. His teammate was a gender bender or something; a perfect match for Deidara! Come to think of it, the Akatsuki were a bunch of weird so-called criminals: Tobi was a mask-wearing hyperactive dumbass who never took the orange mask off his ugly face; Kisame was as ugly as a fish; Hidan was a retard; Zetsu was a twin-in-one cannibal; Deidara was gay; Sasori was a self-converted puppet who had no balls, the signs of a powerful male; Pein was a friggin nose-ring wearer; Konan was weird for loving a weirdo like Pein; the only sane person was Itachi, probably. Kakuzu even considered himself in the "sane" category of the Akatsuki; compared to the others, he was definitely a normal guy. Sure, he's got four masks strapped on his back, with tentacles connecting his body parts together; but it was still pretty much normal. It wasn't his fault that he needed tentacles; he was sent on a mission once to blow up the Raikage, but the bomb mistakenly exploded earlier than planned, blowing Kakuzu into pieces. It was a scientific miracle consisted of tentacles which had brought him back to life.

Sasori sighed as he glanced at the two shocked figures in front of him. Sometimes he even thought Hiruko was smarter than most of the Akatsuki members who never used their brains to think. Can't they find some common sense? Why did God even gift them with brains if they never attempt to use them?

"Dudes, I'm a puppet, what do you expect," Sasori explained as calmly as possible, which wasn't calm at all. "I decided to get rid of my balls after it got too painful; I couldn't focus myself at all due to the waves of agony. It's all because of you, Deidara, you punched it way too many times while I was still a human!" The puppet master shot a look of pure venom at Deidara, who flinched badly. He flinched so badly that he flew backwards by accident and crashed into a tree painfully. Deidara rubbed his head with his hands, groggily shaking splintered bark from his long hair. So, it was his fault that Sasori decided to get rid of his valuable balls? Well, he was going to prove his ex-lover wrong! He quickly jumped to his feet as Sasori, Kakuzu, and Hiruko started to continue their way towards the looming tower in the forest's center.

Who cares about Itachi and Zetsu, they're capable of taking care of themselves. However, as a subordinate to his danna, Deidara must be protective of Sasori at all times. He followed the trio towards the tower, privately hoping that there was a bed or two located in the tall structure itself.....

* * *

He lashed forward his katana, but he hit nothing. Nothing but air. He couldn't believe his aim was as bad as a baby's. To be correct, he had missed more than once. In fact, he had missed thirty times; he had kept track, although he felt a painful _pang _whenever he missed. He had to keep track of his misses though; Kabuto had clearly stated that he must become a good mathematical ninja as well as a battler.

A punch to the stomach was painful. A kick to the head was unbearable. However, to make matters deadly, a full-force, pinked-haired headbutt to the private part was the same thing as suffering hell's million waves of agony. That was exactly what Sasuke Uchiha experienced during his fight against his ex-teammate, the beastly Sakura Haruno. Sakura had far exceeded his expectations by easily overwhelming his strength with her strength. It was unfair really; Tsunade, current Hokage of Konoha and mentor of Sakura, had somehow transferred her own monstrous strength to Haruno's lithe body. As Sasuke slammed onto a tree and slid to the ground, grimacing in pain, he finally realized something. All those days spent in Orochimaru the Snake Sannin's domain were a complete waste of time; come to think of it, Orochimaru had taught him nothing of prominent importance so far! He had sparred with Kabuto in front of Orochimaru with rules of "Chidori Illegal" set up; Orochimaru had Sasuke fight Kabuto merely to glance at the Uchiha's body and admire it! Sasuke staggered up, supporting himself weakly using his half-cracked katana, and attempted to charge at Sakura. However, Sakura used her speed to reach Sasuke's side in an instant and launch a punch worthy of matching Mohammed Ali's on Sasuke's cheek, practically sending his eyeballs popping out into the distance. He slumped onto the ground, panting tiredly as he glanced in fear up at his former teammate.

"Holy shit...how could you...do this to me?" Sasuke groaned as he rolled around on the ground like a toddler. Sakura observed the immature Uchiha, half-amused, half-satisfied; she had unleashed all ten million amounts of her anger on Sasuke's body, but making contact with her former crush still felt good. Suddenly, Sakura had a nasty idea generated in her mind, and she grinned as she walked towards the Uchiha lying on the ground.

The bystanders made no attempt to engage in the fight; Jugo and Suigetsu, who had cheered their leader on in the beginning, were now making bets on whether Sasuke could engineer a combat using the Uchiha heroics since he was in the process of being used as a punching bag; Ino was watching Sakura in pure owe and observing Sasuke's hotness at the same time. Choji Akimichi had long since awakened from being knocked out, but he was currently in the process of attempting a Shikamaru Nara, pretending to be asleep to avoid further commotion. However, even though his eyes were shut tightly, his ears were still wide open, gathering information and eavesdropping on the conversation. He grinned slightly; good thing Sakura had beaten Sasuke up for stepping on his private part!

Sasuke groaned for the sixteenth time and glanced at Sakura Haruno's approaching form weakly. "Heyyy...what's up, Sakura," Sasuke called, attempting a "friendly, pretend-to-feel-remorse-and-regret-tactic" in order to get out of this narrow jam. If he failed, he would surely get pummelled to death by a thousand punches from the sky. He'd rather die without feeling the pain...the AGONY. Sasuke, who was normally calm and emotionless in the face of ultimate danger, could not contain himself; he was defeated, simply because every punch and kick felt like he was being rolled on by three Chojis at the same time. Even though he was admitting defeat to a puny girl, it was better to save his own neck; as a Uchiha, he could live with the disgrace. His only worry was Suigetsu; that blubbering fool might inform Orochimaru or Kabuto of his defeat like a tattletale and cause him anguish among Orochimaru's ranks; there were Sound ninja who hated Sasuke's guts still. Dangerous, this was a dangerous moment.

Sakura stopped an inch from Sasuke's downed body. The boy looked so helpless, so weak, so...undesirable in front of her towering form. She could practically sense his rising feelings of fear shooting up out of his body; it was obvious. Suigetsu glanced at Jugo and grinned. "Looks like I win the bet, Sasuke-sama is doomed. Prepare to pay up, Jugo, you're gonna have to starve for a month to pay the amount you owe me."

"Not so fast," Jugo replied in his deep, slow voice. He gestured at Sasuke slightly, and Suigetsu followed the big man's gaze to rest his eyes on Sasuke's head. "Sasuke-sama is probably thinking of a plan right now. If it was Kimimaro, he'd do the same, I have no reason to believe Sasuke-sama will get killed by a woman."

Suigetsu leaned back against the tree, ignoring Jugo. "Don't spoil my fun, will ya, Juggy?"

"Let me live, girl," Sasuke pleaded. "C'mon, it won't hurt. You ain't a murderer, eh, Sakky?"

Sasuke's attempt at closeness failed miserably. Sakura had misheard a play at her name, "Sakky", into "Sucky." She was shocked that Sasuke still had the guts to call her sucky after she had beaten the living shit out of him; those Uchiha never change, so she was going to have to teach a lesson to Sasuke, one which'll hopefully set a permanent mark on Sasuke's body and mind. She slowly raised a sandaled foot, and moved it so that it was sitting directly above Sasuke's balls; it was extremely precise, not an inch away. Sakura grinned as she prepared to bring her foot down.

"Let's go, Sakura!" Ino urged her childhood rival on. She couldn't wait to see Sasuke's reaction!

Sasuke realized what Sakura was trying to do. His eyes bulged in horror.

"Now, Juggy, believe me now?" Suigetsu inquired sweetly, his hands clasped around Zabuza's weapon. The water-nin could feel the sound of cash plopping into his empty pouch; it had been years since his last paycheck from the greedy Orochimaru.

Now it was Jugo's turn to ignore Suigetsu.

"Hell yeah!" Sakura stated as she sent her foot tumbling down at full speed. She gathered all her chakra into the blow, and it neared Sasuke's body. One more second, and a scream would ring out through the entire forest.

_Tick_. Sure enough, it happened; quite loudly, in fact. Really loud, actually; if you were standing right next to the screamer, your eardrums would've exploded in a second. However, Sakura's stamina kept the effect at bay. She lifted her foot and stepped onto the grass softly, having done her righteous work. Naruto would've been proud if he was here and had seen her deed of justice.

The scream continued. "AAAAAAAAAAAROOOOOOOOOOOOOOFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUKKKKKKKKKKAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOHOOLLLLLLLYSSSHHHHHHHIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTDAMMMM  
MMMMMMMMOOOOOOOKHHHHHHHHAFREEEKOOKOOKFUCKINGAHK!!"

The scream trailed on and on, seemly forever. Nearby birds flew away at the scream; random Genin teams rushed away upon hearing it, afraid to encounter the person who caused it. Suigetsu and Jugo shut their ears tightly, slamming their hands fully against their ears. At that moment, both of the Team Uchiha members were wishing Orochimaru had bought them Ipods as rewards for their previous missions, so that they could put the mp3 device to good use right now. Ino watched with fascination; she actually stretched her neck a few inches to get a clearer view. Choji was jolted out of pretending to be asleep by the sudden outburst, and now he was observing the scene with half-closed eyes, glad that the guy who stepped on his private part was suffering a punishment a hundred times worse. Good times seem to arrive at the right moments.

The person feeling the highest was impressed and pleased with her work. Sakura smiled.

* * *

"Our work is done." Itachi informed Zetsu, cracking his knuckles pleasantly. It felt good after a full-on duel.

"**Tower time." **Zetsu hissed. "**Where's Deidara, though?"**

"No matter, I expect we'll find him soon...we just need to locate Sasori."

* * *

Kiba and Shino laid on the ground, defeated. Itachi's Tsukuyomi had sent the two of them into a world of chaos; a world in which most of the aggressive inhabitants were WOMEN. After escaping hordes of naked fangirls, Kiba found himself transported into his room at home. Kiba's own sister, Hana Inuzuka, had raped Kankuro, Sabaku No Gaara's older brother, on Kiba's own, precious BED. Naturally, being an Inuzuka female, Hana was a rough, tough, girl who liked to play dirty. Kankuro, being the brother of the innocent Gaara who had no idea what sex was, had begged Kiba to rescue him, but Kiba decided to betray his former savior. The beast-nin had tried to leave the room to avoid seeing anymore of the scene, but an unstoppable force had prevented him from doing so. Meanwhile, he had watched Pakkun, Kakashi Hatake's personal ninja dog, engage in a 30-minute long sexual activity with Akamaru. It scared the hell out of Kiba's remaining courage, leaving him with nothing but a forfeit plea. Tsukuyomi's sheer power defeated him.

Shino fared no better. In his section of the illusionary world Itachi had cast upon them, he was back on the beach. His first reaction was, _Oh, shit, not again..._, but actually, this time it was MEN who showed up to confront him. The women who had tried to strip him of his coat and sunglasses had left already, but he was faced with an even deadlier opposing gang: perverts of the same gender. To make matters worse, he had viewed his father Shibi Aburame getting harassed by male beach lifeguards somewhere in the distance, while the men came closer at every second. The scene which followed was too gruesome to describe. After Tsukuyomi had finished its deadly work, Shino was defeated, his bugs rendered useless after they had seen their master getting raped brutally. He had one thought after being defeated by Tsukuyomi: the cloaked man who they had just fought was a 100% pervert, probably even surpassing Jiraiya the Toad Sannin and Kakashi Hatake, two of Konoha's master perverts.

Hinata Hyuga was unconscious through all this, so thankfully, she had managed to avoid being a victim of Itachi. Itachi had actually prepared a little something between her and Naruto Uzumaki in Tsukuyomi, but since she was unconscious, she did not have the chance to get involved. Now, freshly awakened, Hinata was told by her teammates of the experiences that they had suffered while she was in a blissful sleep. Hinata did not make a big fuss out of it after Kiba had finished the tale, in fact, she urged the two boys to find another scroll, since Itachi had taken theirs upon Shino's defeat.

"Lucky you," Shino complained. It was unlike Shino to complain, but you can't blame him. He was a teenager who got subjected to inappropriate actions far too early.

Kiba staggered up, aided by Hinata pulling him upright by the left arm. The beast-nin wobbled slightly, still shakened after the sudden turn of events. "She's right, Shino, we'll need to get another scroll in order to advance."

"All right, all right, but if we encounter that cloaked guy again, this is what I'm gonna do: I'm going to run away like there's no tomorrow!"

* * *

"You want bamboo to eat, panda?" Kisame rasped. "You should go to the zoo where you belong. Hurry along, now, they've got plenty of bamboo for you to eat~ouch."

Neji Hyuga slammed Kisame on the stomach with a Gentle Fist attack, sending the shark-nin tumbling onto the ground. "Don't call her that, sharkie!"

"What if I continue to do so, long haired pillock?" Kisame insulted rudely, raising Samehada from the ground in an effort to defend himself. That Gentle Fist had hurt a lot, but his chakra system had managed to deflect it narrowly.

"Hn," Neji said.

"Say something more dramatic, Neji Hyuga," TenTen advised the Hyuga prodigy. "You can't let that sharkface insult you like this."

"OK, whatever you say," Neji replied dismissively, turning to face the waiting Kisame. The two of them were quited pooped after engaging in a non-stop taijutsu duel, so they had resorted to finishing the fight in a war of words. Neji cleared his throat and began to shout in a loud, clear voice. "For the love of~"

"I'M GETTIN' outta HERE, KISAME!" Hidan screamed as he rushed into the clearing, chased by a teeth-flashing, completely naked Rock Lee. The Jashinist grabbed his scythe from the ground and ran away into the distance, screaming. Kisame glanced after Hidan for a brief second, shrugged, then ran after his comrade.

Neji used his Byakugan to observe Hidan and Kisame's movements. The two Akatsuki members were running deep into the forest, away from Team Gai's location. They had won the fight.

"Hn," Neji grunted softly. "Lee, you have saved us. Who knows what would've happened if you hadn't intercepted that naked retard. I used my Byakugan to observe that naked guy's retardness, and it clearly states that he had a retard level of nine million. I don't enjoy fighting retards, they tend to lead me "off the topic."

"Neither do I," Lee stated, flashing his teeth brightly while giving the good guy pose simultaneously. "At least I got his scroll! Let's head to the tower, my youthful comrades, for another youthful challenge will start soon!" The taijutsu expert pocketed Hidan's scroll securely, and bounded off into the distance. Neji and TenTen exchanged tired glances, then followed the over-enthusiastic Lee away towards the tower...

* * *

Author's Note: OK, I admit this chapter wasn't as good as the previous one...anyway, probably preliminaries in the next chapter!

Read & Review please! Thank you!


	8. The Preliminaries Start

Chapter 8 up! Read & Review plz :)

* * *

"WE'RE DA FIRST ONES HERE!" Rock Lee cheered happily. "THE FLAMES OF YOUTH IS BURNING SO STRONGLY IN MY BODY THAT I'M PROBABLY GOING TO GET BURNT INTO ASHES IN A WEEK! AH, THE YOUTHFULNESS OF IT ALL! GAI-SENSEI, WHERE ARE YOU?"

"Um..." Shikamaru tried to interrupt Rock Lee's speech, but the taijutsu expert did not hear Shikamaru due to his cheering and constant-teeth flashing. Shikamaru had put on his newly-bought shades, which had cost a hefty amount. However his Chunin salary was enough to pay for it, and he was due for a big raise after he volunteered to play as the proctor for this year's Chunin Exams, in which his companions are entering in. He did not expect to wear his shades until now, since the lens were easily smudged by even the tiniest drop of liquid water; Rock Lee's flashes still soared through the blackness of the shades and embedded themselves in Shikamaru's eyeballs. It was devastating; Lee was a human flashlight, in fact. The lights in the tower room wasn't even turned on, as Tsunade had ordered the proctors to preserve some of the light expenses; Shikamaru himself had laid in the dark for over six hours. He had even ignored Anko's order of "It's Illegal to Enter the Tower Before the Third Day Because We Want More Bloodshed", just for the simple reason of keeping his friends as healthy as possible for the upcoming round of Preliminaries.

The pineapple-headed Chunin walked towards the screaming Lee again, disgustedly holding a tattered t-shirt, which owned several holes on the most inappropriate parts. The ancient t-shirt, from the looks of it, was large enough to fit Choza Akimichi, Choji's overweight father, perfectly. It also used to adorn the color red, but it now resembled something along the lines of brown dung, caused by reasons that no one had figured out yet. Shikamaru had found this shirt lying behind a crate in the tower; it was the only clothing in the tower besides the ones he was wearing right now, and no way was he going to give up his clothes, especially the valued Chunin Vest, for Rock Lee. He had learned from past experiences that if you lent something of value to Lee, it would not come back in its original form. Neji had once lent Lee his best shuriken, capable of slicing through a beast handily, for training. When Lee returned it to Neji, his face was filled with shame and he had apologized deeply to the Hyuga prodigy, using the word "youthful" in his apology for a record three hundred times. The shuriken resembled a circle when it was returned; its razor sharp edges were cut off, and the whole thing looked like something coming out of a vomit; Lee had helpfully suggested that it could be used instead for "Frisbee." To sum it up, no way was Shikamaru going to lend Lee any of his clothing.

Approaching the Green Beast warily, Shikamaru reached out a trembling hand, tapped Lee lightly on the bare shoulder, and the taijutsu expert turned around. Lee opened his mouth and flashed a grin so bright that the shades weren't of much use; Shikamaru's world went pure white. After Shikamaru regained his sight, he continued his speech to the still-cheering Lee.

"What is it that you want, oh youthful Nara?" Lee demanded in a youthful tone as he noticed Shikamaru trying to say something. The Nara genius was secretly pleased that Lee had stopped his youthful cheering for once; it was extremely rare, unless it was a time of grave danger.

"Umm...," Shikamaru stated, scratching his head as he hurled the t-shirt onto Lee's bowl-shaped head. The Green Beast of Konoha grabbed the shirt quickly and placed it directly in front of his wide eyes, observing the garment for any signs of likely traps, such as poison, a hidden camera, or kunai-shooter. When he found none of those hidden in the t-shirt, he sighed in relief and glanced back at Shikamaru again. This time, the Nara spun around in time to dodge the flash.

Shikamaru was fed up by all the flashes; the tan that he had gotten after spending hours at the beach was steadily fading due to being constantly shined upon by Lee's bright teeth. Couldn't Lee skip brushing his teeth for one day? Probably not, since Lee stated that his teeth were his "treasures."

"Lee, you're too youthful," Shikamaru complained angrily. "It ain't a compliment, by the way."

Lee's eyes shined with sudden anger. His joyful face lost its youthfulness, and a wave of darkness swept over the taijutsu expert's body like a tsunami crashing down on land. His fists clenched up tightly, then unclenched softly. Lee's face rose up and faced Shikamaru determindedly, hiding disappointment, although he wasn't hiding it very well. Being a genius, Shikamaru noticed Lee's sudden change of reaction as soon as it happened; he just didn't know what caused it. Was it his remark earlier?

Raising a fist, Lee started to grunt at the stunned Shikamaru. "Shikamaru-kun, I respect you and all, especially since you are a Chunin, but why did you call me youthful? I'm not youthful at all, Shikamaru! How dare you!"

Shikamaru sweat-dropped and practically staggered over onto the ground upon hearing Lee's sudden response. What did he mean, saying he wasn't youthful? Did the world go nuts right here? A feeling of dread crept up Shikamaru's spine as the Chunin thought over all the possible scenarios which might've caused Lee's brain to malfunction. If Lee ever said the phrase "I'm not youthful", the world probably went mad. Spinning a finger inside of each ear, Shikamaru made sure that he did not hear wrong. After feeling pain radiating from his ears, he confirmed it: he heard right. What the hell just happened to Lee?

The lazy Shikamaru was so lazy that he did not hear Lee continuing on his words. Lee finished his sentence, and the world went right again. "Why did you call me youthful? I'm SUPER-YOUTHFUL, not youthful!" Shikamaru fell over onto the ground. He should've known that was coming. Thankful that the world had been righted again onto its usual self, Shikamaru threw himself onto his two feet and glanced straight into Lee's deeply hurt eyes. The Nara genius raised a hand in the form of a peace sign as he shrugged apologetically, and Lee's eyes flared up again in the flames of youth.

"THE PEACE SIGN! THAT"S SUPER YOUTHFUL, THAT IS!" Lee exclaimed, slapping Shikamaru on the head. "ATTA BOY, SHIKA!"

Shikamaru decided to ignore him and get on with what he was going to say.

"Glad you thought so, but this is something else. Rock Lee, this is nothing personal, but you need to put some clothes on," Shikamaru explained, keeping his eyes off Lee's private part, which was actually quite hairy. Even though the shirt had holes in it, at least it'll cover most of the skin. Shikamaru was a lazy genius who had no intention of becoming a pervert; he merely caught clear sight of Lee's body by sheer accident when Team Gai entered the tower surprisingly, beating Sabaku No Gaara's previous record of an hour. Team Gai had reached the tower in precisely fifty-nine minutes, but Shikamaru had tried to list their time as an hour, therefore tying Gaara's record. Lee had complained viciously about this, stating that his toe had stepped on the tower door when the clock reached fifty-nine minutes, fifty-nine seconds, counting as a record. Shikamaru had finally given in after Lee flashed him multiple times, but it still did not change the fact that Lee was refusing to wear clothes. He had left his green-colored Gai-sensei adorned clothing in the Forest of Death somewhere, and Lee had stubbornly insisted on staying naked if it reflected one's youthful body. Shikamaru sent Neji and Tenten back into the Forest to search for Lee's clothes, while Lee himself stayed in the tower to keep Shikamaru company; the lazy genius was now regretting his decision.

"NO NEED FOR CLOTHES!" Lee screamed enthusiastically at Shikamaru's face, sending spit flying out and splattering onto the Nara's cheeks like a sludge bomb. "MY BODY IS SO YOUTHFUL THAT CLOTHES MERELY ADVANCE MY MODESTY! I HAVE NO USE FOR MODEST SINCE I AM A ROLE MODEL FOR FUTURE YOUTHS!" He jabbed a finger at Shikamaru, hurling the t-shirt onto the floor at the same time. "NO CLOTHES, SHIKA! SORRY!" His eyes instantly turned dreamy again as Lee turned to face the wide open doorway, in which he quickly glanced out of. At the same time, people could glance in and admire his body. It was ingenious.

Lee clasped his non-bandaged hands and knelt onto the cold floor, his eyes brimming with tears of gratitude as he thought of the scythe-wielder who had confronted him in the Forest. "I gotta thank that youthful dirty-mouthed scythe-wielder; if it wasn't for his appearance, I would never have thought of running around naked! The flames of youth certainly burn brightly in his chest; perhaps even more than me! Gai-sensei would be proud of that swearer!" He continued to babble nonstop about playing "Skins" with a fellow youthful Beast of Konoha.

Behind Lee, Shikamaru had fallen asleep. His dreams were filled with the bright flames of youth, as his ever-hearing ears absorbed every word zooming out of Lee's never-closing mouth...oh why did his ears have to hear everything, even in a deep sleep? Couldn't he do a Choji Akimichi for once and be safe from the threats of youthfulness?

* * *

"I hereby allow you to carry out this act, Zetsu," Itachi Uchiha confirmed. "You may eat Deidara when we track him down again."

"Yummy."

**"Urgh, yuck! Who would want to eat a gaylord?" **Black Zetsu snorted in disgust, glaring at the white half in shame and disappointment. His other self was plain weird!

"You."

"**No, you!" **

Itachi intervened, breaking the two halves of Zetsu's argument up. "Calm down, guys. Let's just head for the tower first, I need to rest from using the Mangekyo Sharingan, and who knows, Deidara might just be there. I had my suspicions right after he flew away on his stupid clay owl. We should record his voice shouting the command word "Katsu" sometime later, and play it out loudly when he's riding on one of his clay birds. The bird will explode upon hearing the command word, and the world shall be swung into its rightfulness once more."

**"Genius, 'Tachi." **

"I want to eat Deidara!" white Zetsu piped up before being assaulted verbally by his black counterpart. The argument started once more.

"Let's just go." Itachi sighed as he lead the bickering Zetsu deeper into the forest, towards the very center in which the tower was looming out from. The Uchiha stepped over a corpse of a Sunagakure ninja, and made a mental note to himself as he tried to block out the sounds of Zetsu's bickering. Zetsu had stopped several inches behind the thinking Uchiha, apparently arguing just for the sake of it.

"**Son of a whore." **

"Deidara's mother!"

Black Zetsu was flared up. He quickly raced through a bunch of names in his mind, and came up with one. "**Orochimaru's wife!" **

"You mean his husband! Let's face the facts, you're his husband!" White Zetsu retorted valiantly as he grinned slyly. "Admit it, dude! Stop cheating on Orochimaru; think of all the poor men that you've savaged physically! What would Orochi say when he finds out?"

A look of pure pissed-offness crossed Black Zetsu's normally grim face. His section of the mouth curled into a vicious snarl. **"What did you just say?" **

_I need to have a word with Orochimaru sooner or later, _Itachi thought grimly. _He needs to stop influencing Akatsuki members from the outside. Perhaps part of his scheme is to convert our members into gaylords. What a sly dog he is..._

Itachi turned around and charged at the cloaked cannibal in time to stop Black Zetsu from digging his sharp fingernails into White Zetsu's nostril, perhaps aiming to dig all the way through and pull out the brain one at a time, piece by piece. Cannibals were dangerous, and most of all, unpredictable.

"Can't you two settle it calmly for once?" Itachi sighed wearily. "I'm tired of your constant disagreements."

"Fine!" White Zetsu yelled. "Let's settle this once and for all, blackie!"

"**Racist pig**!" Black Zetsu snarled, glaring at Itachi with a "Why-did-you-stop-me" look. "**Fine, whitey, let's do it!" **

Itachi's eyes widened as he pondered on a decision: should he stop the two cannibals from savaging each other, or should he lean back, grab a pack of popcorn, and enjoy the show? Probably the latter. A full-scaled fight between two man eaters was about to start, even though they were sharing a body. Plenty of punches, attempted bites, violent slashes, and more actions should be expected from a fight of this caliber. Itachi leaned back against a tall tree, squinting at Zetsu in an attempt to catch every part of the upcoming fight. Would it be kunai and shuriken, or claws and teeth? Only time will tell, and Itachi was feeling quite excited.

Itachi was greatly disappointed a moment later, however, when the two halves of Zetsu raised their respective hands and shot them forward at each other in a rapid motion, without holding a weapon or extending a fingernail in the process. In fact, Black Zetsu's hand was curled in a fist, and White Zetsu's hand was spread out in a high five position. There was a brief silence.

"I WIN!" White Zetsu cheered. "Paper owns Rock, so you lose, Blackie!"

**"No way, I refuse to admit it!" **Black Zetsu refused. **"How can paper own rock? That's just impossible! So, you're saying that a piece of paper can own a large, falling rock from the top of a deep canyon, eh? How come I don't see paper towels suffocating boulders? Answer me, sucker!" **

_Rock Paper Scissors? Z-O-M-G. _Itachi shook his head. His companion was immature. Perhaps he should be listed in the "retard" category, a honor handed over to only Hidan, and Deidara. Was Orochimaru behind teaching Zetsu, their efficient spy agent, about this pathetic game? Most likely.

* * *

Somewhere else in the Forest, near the very center of the second test site, a raven-haired body leaned against a tree, panting repeatedly in pain. The tower entrance was just a few yards away, but somehow he could not reach it. Wicked hands were sliding all over his body, and waves of agony were still flashing through every part of his internal organs. It was dreadful; Jugo and that traitorous Suigetsu who had helped beat up Sasuke had already entered the tower! Instead of going in after them like a proud leader, he was being harassed by two former fangirls! Naturally, the pink-haired one's touches were more rough and daring, while the blonde-haired one was more tender and shy. Sasuke sighed; he wasn't sure if he should feel anger or pleasure. In the end, he decide to experience both, a remarkable feat for someone who had been trained under the super gay-pervert Orochimaru.

The pinked hair girl stopped her movements as Choji entered the tower, munching on a fresh bag of potato chips. "Feels good, eh, Sasuke-kun?"

"Fuck you," Sasuke curtly replied. "I'm practically crippled, and if I ever get a chance to start a family, it might go down the drain, since I probably can't PRODUCE BABIES ANYMORE! ALL BECAUSE OF YOUR STUPID KICK TO MY BALLS!"

Sakura's face went dark, and Ino relinquished her hold on Sasuke; she hurried away to a safe distance. Sasuke waited for the inevitable punch. BAMMMMMM!

A second later, Shikamaru Nara glanced up, after greeting his old friend Choji on entering the tower. He saw a former comrade sailing through the air and crashing onto the wall at the far end, sliding down smoothly and slumping onto the floor in style. The boy staggered up in vain, but collapsed again and threw up everything in his stomach in a world-record time of 0.00000000000000000000000000000001 seconds flat. Shikamaru groaned; he had just polished the floor tiles, and now it was ruined again, by the traitor Sasuke Uchiha. _Troublesome..._

* * *

A few hours later....

Shikamaru Nara surveyed the large room from his throne in the center. Chunin Exam proctors had been recently blessed with the comfort of a throne; however, the throne was made out of a collection of sturdy poker cards. It was barely enough to support Shikamaru's weight, but a throne was a throne. It made people feel regal and royal like a king, whenever they stand near one or actually sit on one. In this case, Shikamaru chose to sit because of his laziness; his whole body felt tired and his bones felt like they were made out of paper dunked in water; weak, floppy and about to break. As Shikamaru sighed and sat on the throne, the poker cards gave way and his butt hit the cement floor. So much for a throne.

Luckily, none of the Genin noticed his hilarious act, and Shikamaru instantly straightened himself, forcing the burn of shame to extinguish completely. He resumed surveying the remaining competitors: Team Gai was there, with Lee finally accepting his green clothes which Neji had found buried meters under the ground by an apparent prankster. Team Kurenai was there as well, but only Hinata looked alert and ready; Kiba and Shino, two favorites of this year's Exam, were out of focus, their eyes reflecting inappropriate thoughts. Shikamaru chuckled slightly as he noticed Kiba's eyes widen horribly; the sort that an average person would do when observing some sexual activities of others. Clearly, something had happened in the forest which damaged Shino and Kiba's battle-set minds. Ah, that was bad luck, that was. Shikamaru wasn't looking forward to disqualifying any of his comrades.

Team Asuma, with the addition of Sakura Haruno now that Shikamaru was a Chunin proctor, sat next to Team Kurenai. Sakura was deep in conversation with Ino, and Choji was---you guessed it, eating chips, his 20th bag of the day, to be exact. From lip-reading, Shikamaru knew that Sakura and Ino were discussing "Sasuke Uchiha." Shikamaru had been surprised when he first caught sight of the Uchiha's presence, when Sasuke had been thrown against the wall of the tower by Sakura's beastly strength. Shikamaru, being lazy, did not question or wonder thoroughly about Sasuke's appearance, and he had guessed that Orochimaru had sent him to compete in the Exams to become a Chunin, something to rank him with. Sasuke's companions did not look that dangerous--but again, you never know. One look at Shino Aburame by a total stranger would immediately make the stanger jump to the conclusion that Shino was a no-good, gangster-type drug dealer with suspcious shades; in truth, Shino was a dangerous bug-controller. Don't judge a book by its cover.

Now Shikamaru's eyes set sight upon several heavily cloaked figures. These guys looked exceptionally powerful; from the looks of it, they weren't your typical Genin. One of them had red hair, and Shikamaru's awesome eyesight revealed that there were near-invisible chakra strings on the guy's fingertips, which meant he was a puppet master. Beside him sat a fat, ugly guy who did not look like a living human at all; in fact he looked more like a corpse brought back to life. A dark-eyed, masked man stood behind the red-haired puppet master, his eyes clearly showing cash symbols. Perhaps he was a bounty hunter or something similar; maybe he was an ex-banker. From looks alone, though, he looked more like a money-obssessed criminal on the run from the cops.

Near the group sat a long blonde haired dude; Shikamaru wasn't sure if the dude was a man or a woman. Deciding that he was a gender bender and should not pose much of a threat, Shikamaru observed a particularly weird person with venus flytrap plants sprouting out from his shoulders. A heavily hooded man stood beside him, the darkness of his hood covering most of his face. He was naturally a suspicious figure, and Shikamaru made a mental note to keep an eye on the hooded man. Perhaps he was merely too shy to show his face around the presence of so many handsome men. Shikamaru told himself that he, the pride of the Nara, was considered one of those handsome men.

A shark-nin, a half-robed scythe wielder, and a orange-masked man slouched at the opposite corner. Shikamaru took careful note of the heavily banadaged sword clutched in the shark-nin's hands, and guessed that he was a member of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, a bunch of no-good goody goodies. The scythe wielder must be the youthful guy Lee babbled about earlier; from looks alone, Shikamaru could not figure out anything youthful about the scythe-wielder. On the contrary, he looked ancient and...well...inappropriate. The masked man was just someone wearing a mask, so nothing special.

_Seven Teams in total: Team Gai, Team Kurenai, Team Asuma, Sasuke Uchiha's Team, Team Cloaked Guys #1, Team Cloaked Guys #2, and Team Cloaked Guys #3. Not a bad group, I must say. It'll be interesting, but still....troublesome now that I haven't got a throne to sit on. _

* * *

_"_Congrats on beating the Forest of Death!" Shikamaru Nara announced a few minutes later, when all the teams were lined up neatly, facing him and his two Chunin assistants, Kotetsu and Izumo. "You are now subject to more bloodshed: the PRELIMINARIES! Matchups will be determined randomly, and rules...well.....there's no rules, except that I reserve the right to stop a fight whenever I feel like it. Now go up to the balcony, and pray that you aren't going first! This year's group looks dense!"

It wasn't like Shikamaru to say a lot of things, but it was his job; he could be fired, he reminded himself everytime he decided to slack off and hand the microphone to Kotetsu. The Genin filed up the stairs to stand on the upper level, and Izumo quickly prepared the fighting arena while Kotetsu made last-minute fixes to the wide-screened, digital HD scoreboard. The money used for it had come directly out of Shikamaru's pocket, but he was due for a big pay raise, so no harm done.

Tension in the immense room was tight as the scoreboard ran through a bunch of names and suddenly stopped. Shikamaru squinted at it and read the names of the first two battlers out loud. "All right, the first match has been determined. Kiba Inuzuka, against....Choji Akimichi!" _What a drag...two of my friends in the first match....still, I can't take sides, can I? Too bad...I would've declared Choji the winner if that's the case. _

Kiba staggered down the stairs, still shaken after his encounter with Itachi Uchiha's Tsukuyomi. Choji stored his 22nd bag of chips under a nearby wooden bench, and after receiving words of encouragement from Sakura and Ino, proceeded to lumber down the stone steps with great dignity, taking as long as possible to reach the arena; he was trying to stall time. Kiba was already standing in the middle of the arena, eyes unfocused and body slightly shaking. He glanced at Choji as the Akimichi ninja stepped up to face the Beast-nin. Shikamaru strode forward and raised his hand high in the air.

"Ready, guys? Begin!" Shikamaru mumbled, stepping back as he tried to predict who would win the fight. It could go either way since Kiba was unnaturally disturbed by something. Choji, though, didn't feel like fighting at all.

Kiba glanced over at Choji grimly. "Uhh...Choji, I don't really wanna harm you, so what do you say, give up and let me advance? I got subjected to scenes way off our age group, and probably have grown older by a full ten years due to my sights. C'mon please, do this for me, Choji, I'll buy you a bag of chips if you do. Seriously, I mean it. Just do it, don't you feel sorry for me?"

Choji thought Kiba's proposal over. An extra bag of chips would be nice; it's a small price to pay for forfeiting. He was running out of stock; last week, before the start of the Exams, he had a full 500 bags of chips stuffed safely in his closet door. Now, though, he only had 5 left. One more wouldn't hurt. However, there was the case of glory and honor; the feeling of gaining Chunin level at last. It could wait, though, the Exams were every year. Kiba experienced matters much worse than what he felt in the Forest of Death; he felt sympathy for the Beast-nin. He started to think the proposal over even harder, so hard that veins were starting to show up on his face. "Hmm..."

"Just do it, Akimichi, " Kiba urged, pumping his fist in half-celebration. He could feel victory coming already; he could even smell the sweet scent of it through his powerful nose! Having Choji as an opponent was the same thing as winning a one-way ticket to the next round! Meanwhile, Choji Akimichi decided his decision fully, without any regrets.

"Yeah, why not. Proctor Nara, I forfeit." Kiba jumped up and down in joy as he pumped his fists fully, excited that he had reached the finals for the first time in his shinobi life. Choji, meanwhile, started to lumber up the stairs to resume eating his chips. What a waste of time and energy walking up and down those stairs.

"THANKS, CHOJI, I'LL BUY YOU A BAG OF CHIPS AFTER THE MATCHES ARE COMPLETED!" Kiba promised as he headed up the stairs after Choji. The Beast-nin saluted Choji, who mouthed the words "Chips", and hurried over to celebrate with Shino and Hinata. The fat Akimichi was now crunching on his potato chips; he finished the bag and reached for another one just as Ino and Sakura advanced on him, their faces angered and disappointed that Choji had given up so easily. He could've at least put up a fight; even if it was a second long in length, it was still worth it! Fat people don't like to move, do they....!

_Typical Choji, _Shikamaru thought, amused. He glanced up at Kotetsu, who prepared to make the scoreboard select the next pair. _Always falling for the food trick. Whatever, can't say I'm not amused. _"Winner of this match, if you can even call it one, Kiba Inuzuka."

* * *

The scoreboard finished selecting, and the next matchup was shown. Kisame Hoshigaki against Ino Yamanaka.

"All right, so, Kisame Hoshigaki, whoever you are, and Ino, please proceed down to the arena for your fight," Shikamaru called out, a bit grimly. Things were looking dangerously bad for Ino; since she was bad at close combat and any sort of offensive fighting styles, that big sword could easily slice her into two meat halves. Kisame, his sharklike face widening in a leer of mockiness, raised Samehada high and stepped forward on the arena. Ino slowly walked towards her taller opponent, slightly nervous about that bandaged sword.

"Begin!"

Kisame instantly walloped Samehada in an arc, and the flat side of the sword slammed into Ino's face, causing her delicate nose to break loudly; gushes of blood zoomed out of her two flattened nostrils as Ino flew through the air, slamming into the opposite wall. Kisame slowly lumbered forward, preparing to cast a jutsu to end the match right there. Sakura was watching through pain and sympathy for her pathetic excuse of a friend, while Choji took no heed of his comrade's upcoming doom; he was already very occupied with eating his 25th bag of chips. He was running out of stock, but Kiba was going to give him one sooner of later, so Choji did not care about his feasting amounts.

Ino lay with her back against the wall, wondering what the hell she was still doing here on the floor, being embarrassed in front of everyone, especially Sasuke Uchiha. She should just forfeit and get over with it.

"Are we gonna have to have some broken ribs?" Kisame demanded devillishly, about to use a jutsu. "Or are you gonna forfeit and get the hell outta here like Chicken Little's pathetic running style?"

Ino had no reply. She would never become a Chunin at this rate.

Sasuke, Suigetsu and Jugo watched with approval at Kisame's actions. Sasuke in particular rooted for Kisame to lop Ino's head off; one less fangirl it would mean.

"Kisame's playin' it rough, it seems," Itachi commented as he glanced at Kisame performing rapid hand signs. Itachi recognized the sequence of hand signs for Kisame's trademark Suiton: Suikodan No Jutsu, in which a great maneating shark would zoom out of nowhere and brutally gobble up the helpless opponent with enthusiasm. The fight was decided, and Itachi privately wished that he would get to go next; he needed to refine his rusty hand-to-hand combat skills, preferbly with a powerful taijutsu expert like Maito Gai or one of his heavily-trained pupils. It was always fun going up against someone who only knew how to use his hands and legs to fight.

"Suiton: Suikodan No Jutsu!" Ino's eyes widened as the shark rocketed towards her helpless form, opening its monstrous jaws wide, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth...

Even Shikamaru himself knew the outcome. He quickly raised a hand and signaled to Kotetsu and Izumo to stop the fight. "Fight's over."

* * *

More prelim fights comin up, but sadly, no Sasuke vs. Itachi just yet... Read and review, they encourage me to write mor :D Thankz!


	9. The Prelims Continue

**Author's Note: **Dammit, REAL exams are coming, not Chunin Exams :( I'll still find some time to update though, I'm sure :)

Read and Review please!!

* * *

Shikamaru's voice rang out loudly and clearly. "Fight's over!" he shouted as Kisame's jutsu neared Ino's helpless form. Murder was going to be committed if it wasn't stopped!

Izumo flipped open his pouch and grabbed out a shiny kunai as he jumped down onto the arena floor from the balcony above, intent on stopping Kisame from killing Ino; too much bloodshed was gruesome. However, as he landed on the hard-tiled floor, Izumo acidentally slammed his fragile knee against the tiles, causing immense friction to occur. The force of the impact was enough to cause Izumo to break his left knee, and the Chunin assistant's face went dead white as he collapsed, screaming in total agony while clutching his injured knee. Shikamaru sighed. That pathetic excuse for a shinobi just _had _to break his knee...now he had to find another assistant. How troublesome.

"Holy aaaaaaaaaargh!" Izumo moaned in pain as he rolled around, clutching his knee with both hands. "AAAAAARRRGH!"

The lazy genius ignored Izumo's moans fully while he quickly sent his shadow snaking across the floor, and it attatched itself onto Kisame's in time to stop the shark-nin from killing Ino. However, the Suikodan No Jutsu apparently had its own thoughts; even though Shikamaru had successfully captured Kisame with his Shadow Possession Jutsu, the shark missile flew by itself towards the screaming Ino, who still had fresh blood flowing down her grotesque, Samehada-marked face. Shikamaru groaned and sent another one of his shadows towards the shark missile, trying to stop it as the carnivorous fish opened its mouth wide to devour its weak prey.

Kotetsu, who was watching from above, near the scoreboard, let out a low whistle. "You da man, Nara!" Sakura and the Rookie 9 all sighed in relief as they saw Shikamaru's heroic deed. The shadow had managed to capture the stealthy shark at the last moment, and the fish was one inch away from beheading Ino. Ino sighed as she rubbed the remnants of her destroyed nose; she felt absolutely....NOTHING. The kunoichi jumped into the air in a frenzy as she realized the truth; meanwhile, Kisame had broken free of the Shadow Possession Jutsu and was just heading upstairs to rejoin his laughing Akatsuki comrades. Sometimes evil organizations just had to laugh at someone's misery, or to be more specific, a nose-less person's complaints. The Rookie 9 just stared along with the disbelieving Shikamaru at Ino, who was now banging her head on the wall ferociously. They all knew how much Ino cared about her looks, and now that her nose was completely gone, she had decided to commit suicide right on the spot; without a perfect nose, why bother living in a world where everyone would laugh and sneer everytime they glance at your face? It was horrid. Luckily, as Ino charged in for the death blow, her eyes closed blissfully, Sakura jumped down and rescued her friend in time. The pinked-haired practically dragged the blonde-haired screaming up the staircase to the amusement of the watching others. Blood dribbled down the stairs, pouring from the hole in the center of Ino's face, and from the top of her head, which now endured an immense gash worthy of nomination for "World's Biggest Gash on Head" award.

"You showed her, Kisame no danna, un," Deidara grinned. He was beginning to think Kisame was handsome, but you can't blame him. Deidara was gay, anyway.

"Way to go, Hoshigaki!" Sasuke Uchiha bellowed gratefully, leaning over the balcony to shout his two cents at the pleased shark-nin. That Ino finally got what she friggin deserved! Kisame nodded in acknowledgement, and pointed at his bloodstained Samehada sword.

"Yeah, Samehada's quite angry, you know, for touching such a pathetic asshole. And Nemo over there is still quite pissed at missing a chance to gobble up that worthless piece of shit." Kisame pointed a blue finger at the Suikodan shark missile, who was still levitating in midair, trapped by the hovering shadows. Nemo glared up at Kisame in shame and anger; as it did, its teeth seemed to extend wickedly like guillotine blades.

"Why'd you have to tell everyone my name?" Nemo complained, his blue body turning into a nasty shade of crimson. "It's all your fault for naming me after a dumb fish!"

"Well, at least that fish starred in a movie," Kisame replied, grinning as he snapped his fingers, turning Nemo into white wisps; the shark missile's work was done here. "And now, proctor, you should name me the winner."

Shikamaru was totally ashamed that Ino lost, even so. Now both of his teammates were eliminated...maybe he should follow up to Asuma-sensei and smoke ten packs of cigarettes per day to get over the disgrace. He kept the thought in mind, but collapsed onto one knee, breathing heavily from using his Shadow Possession on not one, but _two sharks! _He struggled to stand up, but was too tired to do so, so he decided against it and just stayed where he was. He raised a hand slowly and opened his mouth to announce the victor; his face muscles were straining themselves just to do so. "Argh, what a drag...anyway, winner, Ino!"

Kisame's mouth dropped open. "What the hell? You dirty rotten no good sly dog! You don't want me to call Nemo to take care of you, huh?" The shark-nin angrily raised Samehada, glaring menacingly at the staring Shikamaru.

"Can't you take a joke...winner, Kisame Hoshigaki. And please, while you're at it, hand me a shark fin soup, will you." Shikamaru announced.

After hearing the pineapple-headed Nara's words, Kisame's eyes were getting steadily bloodshot; the eyeballs bulged wickedly, threatening to break out from the sockets. His whole face was lighting up in outrage, and his hands clutched Samehada tighter than ever as he started to walk over to the staircase. Kisame breathed heavily, deciding that Shikamaru must die for making fun of his heritage. He couldn't help his appearance; his dad, a powerful Mist Shinobi, just had to fall in love with a dirty old female shark, and he was the result! Kisame stepped roughly onto the top step, glaring down at the trembling Shikamaru the whole time; he was going to fix that lazy bum's appearance, one way or another! Itachi watched with amusement as Kisame started to walk down the stairs; he had never seen the calm, collected shark-nin so pissed off, by a lazy pineapple headed guy!

"All right, all right," Shikamaru hastily called up to Kisame, who was already halfway down the steps, an amazing feat by someone who ran 100 meters in five minutes. "Kisame, you win. In fact, you're quite handsome, I just noticed."

Kisame shook his head in annoyance; that kid better not make fun of him again, or the consequences will be dire. He decided not to cause more trouble, and the body would prove quite hard to hide. It was smarter to avoid trouble; he was in enemy territory, Kisame reminded himself hastily. One wrong move could sent battalions of ANBU members leaping down enthusiastically, waiting to arrest you. Kisame breathed out a few curse words, grunted roughly, and turned to walk up the stairs.

"Troublesome sharkface...." Shikamaru muttered to himself, glancing up at the waiting Rookie 9 and the other teams. They were looking bored, tired of the argument between the lazy genius and the short-tempered shark-nin. He could feel his rising popularity decreasing rapidly now; he had to entertain the audience! Shikamaru forced himself to stand upright, even though it took all the strength he had left, sapping the energy from his tired legs; he signaled for Kotetsu to run the next matchup. Izumo was still lying a few meters away from the main arena floor, his eyes filled with tears and his mouth opened in an endless scream. No one cared about him; it just made the Chunin feel worse that no one bothered to care about someone with a broken knee. If Tsunade, Hokage of Konoha, got raped (even though it was pretty unlikely) by some total stranger, every man in town would be extremely furious, and would've all ganged up upon the criminal of such a dastardly deed. They would've wanted to carry out the crime themselves. Izumo decided to stay silent for the sake of not getting fired from his post, and laid there, unmoving while trying to keep the rising agony at bay.

"Finally, the next match," Sasuke muttered impatiently.

"Finally, the next match," Itachi grunted, glancing at the scoreboard with tired eyes. Waiting was boring.

"Hn," Neji groaned as the scoreboard ran through every name for the third time in a row. When was it going to stop? Was the scoreboard broken or something? Neji hoped not, or else it would mean never getting to show off his new Hyuga heroics.

"Hn yourself," TenTen snapped, pissed off.

"What the?" Neji replied tiredly, not really caring. Why did his one word offend his comrade?

Lee jogged in place, waves of sweat already dribbling down his body like snakes slithering stealthily down Orochimaru's robes. The Green Beast of Konoha believed in getting ready, no matter how long it takes. Youth will never make him tired!

"Un," Deidara grumbled.

"Senpai, when's this gonna end?" Tobi inquired quietly, gesturing at the scoreboard. "Is that man manipulating it?"

"If he is, I'll fucking rip his balls off!" Hidan screamed, waving his scythe menacingly at the worried-looking Kotetsu.

* * *

Ten minutes. Nothing happened. The scoreboard still ran. Kotetsu, the scoreboard runner, was slumped against the wall, his eyes blurry from staring determindedly at the screen for such a long period of time; WITHOUT STOPPING, even. Shikamaru was close to being asleep. It was totally troublesome.

* * *

Twenty minutes. "Shit," Hidan snarled, stabbing his scythe onto the balcony floor ferociously. "Jesus, this is boring!" If nothing happened in the next five minutes, he was going to run out there, kill the fucking Chunin proctor and his assistant, massacre the other exam takers, and probably beat up his comrades in the process. Ah, the shame, Jashin-sama must be disappointed in seeing absolutely zero fights in twenty minutes! He, as a priest, must do something about it, or it'd be disgraceful! Hidan grabbed his scythe, ready for some bloody action if it was required. He preferred killing opponents one-on-one, straight up, though.

* * *

Four minutes.

"Why did I get such a bad hand?" Kakuzu grumbled, looking at the cards he clutched in his hands. The bounty hunter was sitting in a small circle with Itachi, Deidara, Zetsu, and Tobi. They were playing Big Two, and Kakuzu was losing, as usual. He shouldn't have placed the bet; Itachi would surely win. He glanced over in envy at Sasori, who was watching Bleach on an extendable, portable TV screen installed in his left shoulder blade; luckily none of the Konoha ninjas noticed this suspicious sight. Puppets had all the advanced technologies in this world.

Kisame and Choji were asleep, having taken the preliminaries already. They were tired of waiting, but no one can blame them. Suigetsu was playing mercy with the impatient Sasuke while they waited, and every few seconds sharp yelps of "mercy!" rang out through the arena. Ino was unconscious from too much head banging; her whole head was covered in deep red blood. Sakura leaned over the metal railing and stared directly at the half-asleep Shikamaru, who was wobbling heavily on the floor where he stood.

"Get this thing working!" Sakura bellowed angrily at Shikamaru while waving a gloved fist widely. Shikamaru glanced at her with half-opened eyelids, shrugged innocently, and ignored the kunoichi completely.

The thing better decide a matchup in the next fifty seconds, or it'll be disastrous. Hidan was ready to rumble as he waited for the minute to pass. _C'mon, one minute isn't this long! Hurry up, I'm counting! Fourty nine, fourty eight, fourty seven, fifty six, fifty five...._The Jashinist was so bent on destruction that his mind was steered clear of mathematics; he couldn't even count properly, and kept repeating numbers, therefore he never reached one minute. The exam takers were safe.

* * *

Finally. The scoreboard worked. After twenty seven minutes, it worked.

"Danggit!" Hidan cursed, a bit disappointed. He had finally finished counting one minute, but the scoreboard just had to work. What a coincidence.

"Next match: Shino Aburame against Weasel U.!" The fully-awake Shikamaru called out loudly to the silently staring exam-takers on the balconies above. He watched "Weasel U.", a heavily cloaked, completely hooded man, slowly step away from his teammates towards the stone staircase. Could Shino take this guy on? Probably, as Shino qualified as one of the strongest shinobi in the Konoha 11. What Shikamaru saw next reflected the complete opposite.

Itachi gave a thumbs up to Kakuzu, who was moaning loudly, greatly annoying nearby comrades. Kakuzu now owed Itachi his life savings for the next three years, since Itachi had won the bet Kakuzu placed just now. The Uchiha returned his thoughts to winning the fight. "Hn, about time."

Kiba Inuzuka glanced at Shino in concern. "Hey, Shino, remember what you told me in the forest?"

Shino, who was halfway down the stone staircase, turned around to face his comrade; his hands were still stuck in his pockets. "Uhh....I don't remember."

"I'll remind you then," Kiba replied helpfully. "You told me that if you encounter that hooded guy again, you're going to run away."

Shino's face curled into a thoughtful expression. He tried his hardest to remember what happened in the Forest of Death, as his mind was still swirling with inappropriate images of naked women charging towards him. Wait..._naked women? Cloaked, hooded man? _Shino seemed to grasp the memory, and Kiba grinned as he watched the bug-user get hit by the sudden jolt of remembering his opponent. "Oh, Kiba, you mean that fag who uses Genjutsu....?"

Kiba's grin widened. He pointed at Itachi, who was walking towards the center of the arena while glancing up at his shade-wearing opponent. "Yup. It's the man himself."

Shino's face paled instantly as he shot a brief glance at his cloaked opponent, who was already standing next to Shikamaru in the arena. The bug-user recognized him quickly as the guy who trapped both him and Kiba in the inappropriate Genjutsu. Since he was someone who'd keep his words and promises, Shino did what was being expected of him. Naturally, it shocked everyone that his behavior was so immature.

Itachi walked back up the stone staircase as Shino ran full speed up the steps, screaming in horror until he slammed into a nearby wall and crumpled onto the ground, unconscious. At least he wasn't being tortured to inappropriate scenes.

"Nice job," Kisame congratulated his best friend and partner as Itachi reached the top of the balcony. They did their secret handshake, which consisted of one-handed shakes, two-handed shakes, and even some no-handed shakes. It was cool, devised by the smarty-pants Itachi himself, although the two of them constantly failed the no-handed shakes. Deidara was able to accomplish that a few years before, after a freak bombing accident to his two arms.

* * *

Shikamaru was beginning to think he took the proctor job for nothing. Both his Team Asuma teammates were already eliminated, and the past three matches were frankly boring, to say the least. They weren't even proper fights, as Choji had given up, Ino got beaten in less than five seconds, and Shino had knocked himself unconscious, therefore counting as a forfeit. Not to mention the twenty-seven minute timeout, in which everything was silently boring. Shikamaru hoped dearly that the next match was going to be interesting, as he desperately needed something to amuse him. He was feeling extremely troublesome, as he watched Kotetsu turn on the scoreboard again. Shikamaru put his hands in his pockets as he crossed his fingers, praying. _Please....! I need something to watch! _As the scoreboard finished selecting, this time in only ten seconds flat, Shikamaru punched a fist in the air as he glanced at the two names listed on the screen brightly. Meanwhile, Kotetsu sighed in relief, quietly thanking the scoreboard for working properly; no more glares in his direction because of a bug with the scoreboard. He had received more than fifty death glares from the exam takers during the timeout; it was totally intimidating.

Shikamaru screamed himself hoarse as he announced the next matchup, and regretted it. Now he wouldn't be able to use his normally booming voice for the next couple of hours. "Next match: Akasuna No Sasori against Haruno Sakura!" _Should be interesting, though..._

* * *

"Let's get this over with, shall we?" Sasori offered calmly, his eyes showing no emotion as usual.

"Hell yeah!" Sakura replied confidently, strapping on her gloves tightly. She observed her opponent carefully; he was slightly taller than her, had a bunch of red hair, and wore a billowing cloak which covered most of his body. That red-haired boy was quite cute, and reminded her vaguely of Sabaku No Gaara, who she heard had being nominated for the position of Kazekage in the Sand Village. Perhaps this Sasori came from the Sand Village too; if he did, then he would probably use sand, just like Gaara. But then, even if he's stronger than Gaara, she was going to show him how powerful a real woman's beastly strength is! Also, this was her chance to prove her skills more to Sasuke; she wasn't sure if the stubborn Uchiha had remembered the torturing punches she had given him back in the Forest of Death. This would serve as a reminder to that Uchiha.

The Akatsuki members all piled up against the railing, glancing down at the fighers with interest. This was going to be fun, as Sasori was one of the strongest in their competitive ranks.

"That girl's severely underestimating Sasori no danna," Deidara wisely noted.

The Green Beast of Konoha ran up to the railing. "Show him, Sakura!" Rock Lee roared loudly as he danced his trademark cheerleading footwork. It was guaranteed to improve the strength of the person he's cheering for. "Youthfulness is the key, remember that!"

Neji rolled his eyes at Lee's cheering. He tried to block out the youthful taijutsu expert's loud and enthusiastic yells, but failed, even when he punched Lee in the stomach. Lee merely flashed a blinding grin in Neji's direction and turned back to cheer for his favorite kunoichi. Neji sighed; his teammate would never grow up.

"Hn," the Hyuga prodigy mumbled coldly, wishing that someone would hand him an earplug or two right there. He would even settle for half-an-earplug, at least it was better than nothing. All that's left was to watch Sasori beat up Sakura, just to shut Lee's annoying mouth up. He was no fortune-telling gypsy, but he was pretty sure that Sasori would win, from looks alone, Sasori was a tough guy. He personally didn't care about the outcome, but figured that if Sakura got beaten, Lee might shut up for once and give his tired ears some rest.

"Yeah, Sakky," Sasuke cupped his hands around his mouth and called down, smirking slightly. "Let's see your _sucky _skills, Sakky."

The Uchiha was determined to pay Sakura back for heavily torturing him in the Forest of Death. He turned to his two teammates, and urged them to do the same. Suigetsu ignored him because Sasuke had literally cracked the bones in his hands during their mercy match, while Jugo was too busy sitting against the wall to stand up and taunt Sakura. Plus the two of them didn't think Sakura was _that _bad; however, they had indeed seen her in action, and were hesitant in angering her. Sasuke threw the two of them a glare of disgust and turned back to watch the match. He hoped Sasori would beat the hell out of Sakura; he couldn't wait to see the red-haired boy brutally rip Sakura's screaming head off in delight. Revenge sometimes could provoke certain fantasies.

"Shut up, Sasuke, and thanks, Lee," Sakura replied clearly to the two of them, turning around while she did so. However, as she turned her head to reply, this was a dire mistake. Sasori charged forward, and quickly pressed a red button on the bottom of his arm, hidden in the long-sleeved Akatsuki cloaks. No one would know where it originated from. Sasori grinned slightly as a small compartment latched itself open on his wooden chest, sending a small-sized missile flying out from the opening of the cloak, heading rapidly at the surprised Sakura, who was completely taken aback by such a powerful attack. She couldn't even imagine where the missile came from; perhaps this red haired boy was a missile-nin? She would never figure out, unless she won, and now that Sakura knew about the missile, she decided not to underestime Sasori. The pinked hair kunoichi somersaulted out of range, and the missile exploded heavily, causing a huge dent in the arena floor, and also causing Shikamaru to groan inwardly when the proctor saw the dent. Now he's gonna have to pay for repair of the floor.

_No need for puppets, _Sasori thought gleefully as he prepared his next move, probably another long-range projectile. _My body's enough to win this baby. _

"Let's see you handle this baby, girl!" Sasori screeched, firing off a laser beam from inside his left sleeve. It scorched a burning path all the way towards Sakura, who dodged and charged forward with all her might, heading straight for Sasori. The puppet master calmly let loose a blast of fire, but Sakura dodged that too, with her nimble speed; she landed neatly in front of the surprised Sasori, and proceeded to raise her gloved hand, which was now engulfed in rapidly growing chakra. Sasori recognized that as a sign of immense strength, and realized that if it hit, his delicate puppet body would shatter into thousands of pieces. He had to move, and fast!

"Shit!" Sasori realized that he had no time to dodge; that girl's speed and reaction was way too fast for him, if he dodged, she would simply lash out a brutal foot and smash a hole in his wooden chest; that would ruin about 1/8 of the various gadgets hidden inside the puppet master's self-converted body. He had no choice but to unleash his secret weapon! Sasori raised a swift finger and punched a small button on his painted fingernail; suddenly, a small latch clicked open inside the cloak and a cloud of gas floated out dreamily, before engulfing itself in Sakura's face. The odor was strangely familar; on closer inspection, the cloud of gas was a cloud of digustingly smelly fart gas, enough to drive anyone unconscious! Sakura's arm fell limply to her side, and she staggered slightly, trying to keep her balance correct. She was getting overwhelmed by the smell, it was even smellier than Naruto's best one, which had gone for thirteen hours straight without stopping. This one could go on for years, maybe! Sakura gritted her teeth in determination as she pinched her nose with two fingers, keeping her eyes wide open for any signs of attack. _I need to win! _

"MUAHAHAHAHAHAH!" Sasori laughed uncontrollably, raising two fingers high up in the air as a sign of pure victory. "Give up, this is my 4th-Hokage Fart technique! I've personally bought this from an old man who claimed to be the 4th Hokage, Minato Namikaze's personal assistant! Now it's being put to great use! Now, little girl, suffer the might of the 4th Hokage, the Yellow Flash of Konoha, the person who sealed the Nine-Tailed Fox in who knows where! Prepare to lose!" Sasori continued to state facts about Minato Namikaze for the next five minutes, without knowing it. Meanwhile Sakura was trying to stay conscious through the fart's powerful odor; it was quite a feat, but she felt her lungs bursting for air, at the verge of erupting noisily. If it did, she would lose, so Sakura forced her lungs to wait for a while.

The others on the balcony were lucky enough to be out of reach from the smell of the fart. However, they all stared with interest at the fight scene before them; the fart clearly had a devastating effect, it was lucky that they weren't victims of it. Shikamaru had dived into a far corner like a rapid torpedo as he saw the fart coming, and now he was breathing heavily, trying to suck in fresh air, which was slowly disappearing. _No wonder...Minato Namikaze, Naruto's father, has an smellier fart than his son! Well, like father, like son I guess. _

Suddenly, Sakura lashed out a fist and slammed Sasori directly on the chest. The puppet master stopped laughing and toppled backwards, his cloak flying off and landing on the far wall, in a heap of black clothing. Sasori himself landed on the floor hard, and winced slightly in pain, even for a puppet; the punch was powerful, embedded with the strength of a thousand armies, and he had felt the full brute of the blow. It was a miracle that his body did not crack into decaying pieces right there. The fart cloud immediately dispersed, and Sakura landed on her knees, sucking in the fresh air greedily, as well as gulping some of it in at the same time. She had survived the fart of the 4th Hokage!

Shikamaru stood up, sighing in relief as he watched the remnants of the fat cloud vanish. "Winner, Sakura Haruno. Loser, Sasori."

"What the fuck?" Sasori demanded roughly. "Why did I lose? I haven't lost yet, have I? I'm still alive and well, are you blind, lazy ass?"

"According to the rules, puppets without puppeteers aren't allowed in the Chunin Exam," Shikamaru patiently explained to a fuming Sasori. "You're a puppet, therefore you are disqualified. Sorry, but rules are rules, I can't do anything 'bout it."

Sasori's eyes widened like a maniac. He attempted to stride forward, but Shikamaru calmly walked over to a nearby wall and pressed the square button embedded on it. Two large chains zoomed down from where they hung on the wide ceiling, grasped themselves tightly around Sasori's struggling form, and brought him back up to the balcony, where he was still chained. Sasori continued to scream and complain noisily, and Shikamaru was forced to command Kotetsu to place duck tape on Sasori's rapidly opening mouth. Soon all they heard was a mumbling sound instead of the usual screams of rage. Shikamaru praised himself for his genius, but couldn't help thinking that he didn't do the same earlier to the Kisame and the lot. Probably because he thought it was too troublesome, but he had done this this time around because Sasori attempted to knock everyone unconscious with a deadly fart attack. In any rate, Shikamaru walked over to where Sakura stood, shook her hand, and signaled for Kotetsu to start the next selection. The Chunin settled back against a wall as he watched Kotetsu turn on the scoreboard for the fifth time.

Meanwhile Sasori attempted to get free. None of his Akatsuki members tried to assist him, because he disgraced himself by losing to a puny kunoichi. Well, not exactly puny, but most girls such as the blonde-haired one who got pwned earlier _were _sadly puny.

* * *

Suigetsu went up against Neji Hyuga next.

"Go Neji, my youthful rival!" Lee cried, jumping up and down. Sakura-san had won, and if Neji wins this one, it would be a plus as well.

Suigetsu's lips curled into a sharklike smirk as he got ready to draw Zabuza's weapon from where it was slung on his back. "You're going down, no woman can beat me!"

"Hn," Neji growled coldly. "I'm a male."

"No difference is there?" Suigetsu yawned boredly, walking forward to get closer to the long-haired male. He was confident that no gender bender could beat him. "You're still goin' down, so there ain't no biggy difference."

"We'll see." Neji replied coolly, getting into combat stance. He was going to end the match right here!

Suigetsu grinned, shrugged at Neji's stupidness, and grasped Zabuza's sword by its handle. He swung it off his back, and attempted to get it ready for combat, but promptly dropped it. The huge weapon clanked loudly against the floor, denting it even more, causing Shikamaru to groan in annoyance. Suigetsu stared at his hands in disbelief, as if he couldn't find out why he dropped it so suddenly, and then turned around to face Neji once more. When he did he only felt the full force of a Gentle Fist attack straight on his chest, causing him to fly like a zooming cannonball into the opposite wall, where he collapsed in a heap. He attempted to stand up, but fell forward again, his internal organs heavily damaged by the Gentle Fist attack directly on his chest; Suigetsu was deeply ashamed to have failed in an attempt to beat the crap out of a gender bender.

"That's what you get, butterfingers," Neji sneered. "Fate has decided that I win, and you lose." He turned around and started to head for the staircase, his head held high, simply because of the Hyuga pride. Hyugas have to be proud their whole lives; fate has decided that to happen.

Neji's comrades who were watching the fight all groaned as they heard Neji's words. Not that fate crap again; Neji had adopted to talking about "fate" again.

As Suigetsu was lifted up to the balcony by Kotetsu, he realized why he suddenly lost grip of Zabuza's sword. All because of Sasuke, who had destroyed his hands during their "mercy" match in the timeout. When he faced Neji his hands were so sore that he probably couldn't even grip a piece of light-weighing paper properly. Suigetsu made a mental note to himself not to challenge anyone else to mercy in the future; he had almost challenged Jugo a day before. He shuddered just thinking about the probable result if it had really happened.

_Curse you Sasuke,_ Suigetsu thought grimly. He could've won, but Sasuke had ruined it for him. Perhaps the Uchiha had planned this out all along.

"Winner, Neji Hyuga," Shikamaru declared. _Five matches down. Just a few more to go. So troublesome...._

* * *

The scoreboard finished selecting the fighters. "Rock Lee vs. Hidan" was shown...

* * *

I'll finish off the rest of the prelims in the next chapter. Read & Review plz! Thanks for readin'!


	10. A Sexy Hidan? Pein's Arrival!

**A/N: **I really, really really hate exams. Don't you all? Seriously.

R&R

* * *

The scoreboard beeped loudly, finished selecting, and its bright lights faded as the next matchup was clearly shown in bold letters. An enthusiastic yelp rang out through the exam-takers. Shikamaru sighed slowly as he reached into a pocket on his green vest and pulled out his valuable shades reluctantly. He didn't want to use his expensive yet fragile shades so many times in a single day. It was way too troublesome, reaching in and reaching out of pockets; it clearly tired the genius out.

"YOSH! It's finally time for me to get on the battlefield!" Rock Lee shrieked joyfully. "I'm so youthful that I've been preparing for this youthful battle my whole life! If I lose, I will ask Gai Sensei to assign me to a 600-lap around Konoha punishment!" Lee's tone of speaking made it sound like he was preparing to go up against a 1000-shinobi strong army in a full-scaled ninja war full of gory details. In reality it was just one preliminary match; to the Green Beast of Konoha, every battle equaled a bloodshed galore war, even if it was against a puny, weak red ant.

"Watch your words, Lee," Neji grunted unhelpfully. "Remember last time? You promised to run 100 laps around the village, but all that resulted in was a month-long leg-rehab at the hospital for you."

TenTen agreed. "Yeah, it practically caused Gai Sensei to go bankrupt, just to pay for your hospital stay."

The Byakugan user could see through Lee's body, and was shocked at the youthful flames searing all over his body; it was as if his body was heating up for battle already. Lee ran over to the railing, and jumped on it, preparing to leap down onto the arena floor. He gave a good guy pose to Neji, and jumped onto the arena without listening to the Byakugan user's advice. He started to jog in place as an ocean scenery replaced the arena background; the scenery made everyone think Gai Sensei was standing right there with Lee himself, screaming each other's names out loud.

Lee soon finished jogging in place, and started doing his good-guy pose rapidly, sending multiple bright flashes of teeth glinting upstairs towards the assembled Akatsuki members. The S-class criminals all cringed and looked away as light flashed over their dark cloaks, except for Sasori who was chained up heavily; he had the misfortune of taking the blast of light fully in the eface. A minute later, the puppet started to scream about going blind. Hidan, Lee's opponent, turned around after the light had faded (it took 5 minutes for it to finish), and proceeded to glaredown at the Green Beast of Konoha with growing dislike and cowardiness; he had gotten quite a beating back during their "youthful" battle back in the Forest of Death; and that was when Hidan used his full throttle power, in his "Skins" mode. Lee had easily defeated Hidan all the same, so Hidan wasn't sure if he could handle the Green Beast this time around, especially with all those teeth-flashing. With lightning-fast speed, jet-black, thick eyebrows, round eyes, a bowl-shaped head, and teeth which emit lights of a thousand glowing stars, Lee sure was a tough opponent to deal with. Perhaps he'd go off better by forfeiting.

Hidan was so deep in thought that he slouched against the thick railing, thinking hard for the first time in his life. Meanwhile, Shikamaru was getting bored of the unnecessary wait. Lee was already on his eighty-ninth pushup; he was always prepared during long, boring waits.

"Get down there and put on a show, Hidan," Kakuzu urged. The greedy bounty hunter could feel money bursting through his pockets already; Hidan was immortal, he could not possibly lose, unless his opponent was a friggin Jashinist as well, but he wasn't, thankfully. "I could strike it rich if you win; I've already made a bet with Itachi. Hurry up, will ya? And please, one more word for you: make sure you win. Resort to using the curse if you must, because I don't have six billion ryo to give to Itachi if you somehow lose. Go on." There was only one downside to Kakuzu's get-rich-quick scheme; he was a bad gambler. He had once gambled against that no-good mountain-boobed granddaughter of effing Hashirama Senju the First Hokage, and had lost his life savings right there. He hoped he wouldn't lose this time.

Hidan sighed in defeat and frustration as he picked up his red scythe from where it lay on the floor. He wasn't used to thinking hard. He was only used to thinking about killing.

* * *

_Finally. F-I-N-A-L-L-Y. _"Hidan versus Rock Lee, begin. And please don't make it long. If the match somehow exceeds ten minutes I will personally step in and randomly select a winner." Shikamaru announced, his eyes-half closed from tiredness. He had also put on his dark shades, as he knew Lee's blinding flash could somehow reach him; the technique was known for its unlimited distance.

Up on the balcony, Kakuzu groaned as he heard the lazy proctor's words. That would mean the chances of Hidan winning is rapidly slipping; if the match wasn't concluded in a Hidan victory before ten minutes, the chances of the Jashinist winning could be as low as 50%! And due to the bounty hunter's luck, he was sure Shikamaru would likely select Lee as the winner. _Ah poor me, _Kakuzu wept silently in self-sympathy.

Meanwhile, the fight had started. Hidan kept his vigilant eyes locked on Lee the whole time, while one hand clutched the scythe and the other clasped the center of the Akatsuki cloak softly, as if preparing to unclasp it and throw it away into who knows where. Lee, meanwhile, was locked in his trademark combat stance, with one hand in front and the other behind the back. Lee did not underestimate Hidan one bit; the fight in the Forest of Death was a ruse to get him off his guard, Lee was sure. Well he wasn't going to let Hidan enjoy that fleeting bit of satisfaction! He was going to end the fight right here, right now! Steadily blazing flames erupted in Lee's round eyes, and he charged forward with his fastest speed, vanishing in a nimble blur. Hidan barely had time to unclasp the first clasp of his billowing cloak before Lee slammed into his face with a powerful kick; the Jashinist flew into the opposite wall, almost blowing the whole thing apart since the impact was extremely, extremely strong. Every spectator could see that this was the new Lee.

"Take that, yosh!" Lee crowed happily. "Youth prevails!"

"Heyy...you're paying for that," Shikamaru reminded Lee lazily, pointing at the half-cracked wall in which Hidan was currently lying in. "You're gonna have to skip eating dinner for the next two months to pay for that, Lee."

All Shikamaru got in return was a blinding flash of light. The lazy Nara thanked his sunglasses.

Just then, a low groan of pain emerged from the rubble beside the cracked wall, and Hidan slowly emerged, his cloak blown to tiny tattered bits of black fabric. The Jashinist staggered up to his two feet, and swiped his red scythe from the ground, swinging it rapidly in a circle on top of his head; he realized that this was extremely intimidating, and could actually frighten an opponent into giving up. Hidan slowly advanced forwards towards the unfazed Lee, who stared forward with an expression of pure determination. Hidan continued spinning the scythe around until it finally scraped the side of his forehead, forcing Hidan to stop swinging the scythe to prevent a beheading from happening; a trickle of blood flowed down the side of the Jashinist's head, but he did not notice due to his slowly rising passion to rip the bowl-headed taijutsu expert into pieces. His eyes expanded with fury.

"That is pure inhumanity in those shitbag noodles of yours," Hidan remarked nastily, pointing his scythe at Lee's thin legs while wagging his eyebrows up and down, as if directing Lee to look closely at his body. He was surprised that anyone with such skinny legs could hide a stunning amount of force in it. That force was enough to even crack a long wall almost apart! The guy was a pure freak. "Oh dude, where's your soul for crying out loud? You're a beast, man, it's impossible for a human to pack such force in a leg!"

Lee brightened. "Why thanks, I am the Green Beast of Konoha."

"That explains it." Hidan muttered softly, observing the determined taijutsu expert with growing interest, especially those two legs of his. The Jashinist strode forward slowly as he extened an arm into the air, waving it around in tight circles. "He's a beast; probably a shapeshifting one who took the form of a young jerk. Interesting, this one may be worth watching...I'll inform leader Pein when we get home."

Boy was he mistaken.

* * *

"Hmm...that's the signal for Jinchuuriki," Itachi noted as he saw Hidan waving his arm in a circle. "Could it be...this kid Hidan's fighting is a Jinchuuriki? Deidara, get out your phone and call Pein at once; this is of utmost importance!"

Deidara nodded and took out a piece of paper with a phone number scrabbled on it in barely legible handwriting. "Gimme one sec, I need to dial the numbers on this paper."

"Oh my god, you can't even memorize the Pein's phone number? How old are you?" Itachi groaned as he glanced at Deidara's piece of paper. "And...sorry to disappoint you, but it looks like your eyes have problems too. That's the phone number for the ramen shop."

"WHAT, UN? I WROTE IT DOWN MYSELF, I'M SURE I TRIPLE-CHECKED THE NUMBER, UN!" Deidara shrieked in surprise as he heard Itachi's remark. "GOD WHO AM I KIDDING? AND I JUST REALIZED I DON'T HAVE A PHONE EITHER! WAIT....UN...." There was something weird going on, but Deidara's poor excuse of a brain could not succeed in figuring the problem out.

Itachi grinned slyly as he returned to watching the fight. He couldn't believe that bombing artist got fooled so easily, blinded by romance; Deidara never did own a phone in his life, but every Akatsuki member was required to either write or memorize the phone number of Pein the leader, used for emergency reports. Itachi had suspected that Pein made them write or memorize the number purely to further torture their bodies; what use were the numbers without phones to dial in? Deidara, blinded by his newly found yaoi love for Itachi, had thought he owned a phone, and had been eager to please the sly Uchiha. Romance could do such funny things.

A chuckle came on nearby. Kisame had been eavesdropping on the entire conversation so far with his gills. He sweat dropped as he watched Itachi turn away from the weeping Deidara. _Okay...that was definitely unneccessary. _

As the shark-nin turned to the fight, he heard bodies moving; a bright flash of light zoomed up towards the Akatsuki's direction as Lee saw the s-class criminals carefully inspecting his appearance where he was standing. Kisame dived to the side while the others piled against the wall, shutting their eyelids tightly with all their might. The kid was unpredictable...his flashes of light were threatening yet powerful. He was an extraodinary guy with a unique ability. In fact, Kisame was getting more and more interested in him...

The light faded and Itachi walked back to watch Lee sprint like Sonic the Hedgehog across the arena floor towards Hidan. All respect for the Green Beast abruptly changed in the next second of the match.

* * *

For the first time in his life, Lee slammed into a rough wall heavily, propelled by the force of erupting blood, suddenly exploding out of his two painful nostrils. Lee could not believe that this Hidan had a secret weapon; the Green Beast had always expected something would come out from a Jashinist like Hidan, but he never expected to face such a stunning technique that he thought only one person in the world could perform. Lee attempted to stagger up into combat stance, but as his head and eyes zoomed up and rested on his opponent, all that resulted in was Lee getting blown back against the wall again by a bigger blast of nosebleeding; Lee crumpled onto the ground, refusing to lift his head as he knew it would result in yet another cyclone of blood from his nose. Things were certainly getting tougher; he'd have to fight his opponent without LOOKING AT HIM. It was time for drastic actions, such as using his mind's eye to see. He had never believed those crap, but he needed to use the technique now, or he'd surely lose. Lee staggered slowly up onto one knee, breathing heavily in pain as his mind rotated through every youthful strategy he had thought of so far.

On the other side of the arena, Hidan walked slowly past a downed, twitching Shikamaru, who had trails of blood flowing rapidly from his nose; even his sunglasses were splattered with ruby red blood. Upstairs, the Akatsuki members all had massive nosebleeds and were now lying facedown on the ground, eagle-spread with tongues hanging out of their drool-filled mouths. Itachi struggled to stand up again, weakened by the nosebleed; how in the world did Hidan master such a jutsu? Out of the downed members, only Sasori, Hiruko and Deidara remained in their original positions; Sasori was still staring down with no emotion because he was nothing but a wooden puppet, therefore he had no need for breathing or a nose; Hiruko because he was a puppet as well, and Deidara because the blonde artist was a tough gaylord with no interest for girls, no matter how hot they seemed. On the other side of the huge arena, Sasuke, Suigetsu and Jugo were slumped against the wall next to each other, having just endured nosebleeds of immense size, bigger than the Akatsuki's. Sasuke rubbed his Sharingan eyes tiredly; did he just see Naruto or something? The male shinobis of the Konoha ninjas were also unconscious from having glanced at the earlier sight, especially Kiba Inuzuka, as the scene reminded him of the torture he suffered back in Weasel U.'s inappropriate love scene illusion. However he wasn't the worst one yet; Neji was the one, perhaps. He had activated the Byakugan and had naturally taken in every detail of the scene set out right before his ever-seeing white eyes. What had layed beyond those were pure fantasies; Neji realized the true glory of being a awesome pervert as they get to see all these wonderful scenes every single day. It was worth a day's living. Neji had tried to drive deeper into the body, but he had felt the full force of being punched by a kunoichi just as the nosebleed erupted. TenTen stood fuming before the downed Hyuga, who still had his mouth hanging wide open and his Byakugan activated. The weapons specialist never realized Neji was such a pervert who would put a valuable Kekkei Genkai like the Byakugan into bad use.

"What do you think of my Sexy Technique?" Hidan inquired Lee in a sweet girly voice. He, or rather, _she_, was completely naked, and boy were the features good. Hidan had truly mastered the art of nude girl jutsus, and now he was going for the fatal blow.

"Kage Bunshin No Jutsu!" Hidan roared forcefully as he performed a rapid handseal, causing a whole battalion of girl-Hidans to appear out of nowhere; all of them appeared as strikingly good looking nude women, all locked in inappropriate postures, winking at Lee. The taijutsu expert gulped as he heard Hidan roar the jutsu name, and forced himself not to look up no matter what; it was a matter of life or death if he did! He tried his hardest to resist the temptation, and when he started to lift his head, he slammed a hand on his forehead, causing him to look down again in pain. Eventually Lee collapsed from repeated banging of his forehead, groaning from the exhausting feeling he had gained from trying not to glance at Hidan. The male hormones was powerful, he realized sadly. He had expected a tough challenge from Hidan, but not one with a difficulty level of this caliber; Lee, however, refused to give up. He was youthful, and youth will always prevail no matter how hard the challenge!

The Akatsuki were just standing up, but Itachi advised them not to, so they all laid back down again. The elder Uchiha knew what was coming, and the whole thing could be extremely bad for his nose.

"Get ready for the checkmate piece!" screamed the Jashinist in a frenzy, dancing around while exposing all his (her) private parts to everyone who looked. All the perverts who looked sported another wave of blood shooting out from their painful noses. Fortunately Lee wasn't one of them. However the taijutsu expert could feel his defeat coming rapidly; he had to do something rash and risky if he wanted to stay alive in this exam.

"HAREM TECHNIQUE!"

* * *

Kiba Inuzuka, Neji Hyuga, Suigetsu, Jugo, Choji, Shino Aburame and Sasuke Uchiha all slumped against the cracked wall, their clothes practically drenched with deep red liquid. Lee himself was splattered against the wall above the Konoha ninjas, blood still dropping from his nose. He had just been attacked by a whole army of naked female Hidans, and had naturally slammed into the wall, propelled by a new wave of blood. Shikamaru slowly stood up, opening his mouth weakly as he wiped off the last traces of blood dripping from his nose. Thankfully Hidan had transformed back into his male form again, so the proctor did not experience a cyclone of blood. It was extremely troublesome for blood to explode everywhere from your nose.

"Winner....HIDAN...." Shikamaru grumbled as he slammed onto the floor again, tired out from loss of blood. Hidan grinned, swung his scythe which he did not even use back onto his shoulder, and headed back up the stairs to rejoin his fellow comrades. The Akatsuki members were all still lying on the ground. Meanwhile, as Hidan reached the top of the staircase, it was Deidara's turn to experience a tornado of blood; Sasori watched with amusement as Deidara zoomed past his chained body like a swirling rocket and smashed onto the wall heavily. Deidara, as a gay man, had just seen a naked Hidan, so he naturally experienced a nosebleed. Normal males would experience nosebleeds when seeing a nude female, but as a gay one, only naked MALES would force his nose to experience such a torture. The laws of the world were weird, Sasori decided as Deidara started to slide down the wall, screaming in horror. Kakuzu, seeing the coast clear of any naked woman, stood up quickly and headed over to Itachi, who was rubbing his nose absentmindedly. Grinning, the bounty hunter tapped Itachi on the shoulder and reached out a rough hand, gesturing at the Uchiha's tightly packed wallet; Itachi could see money signs flashing rapidly in Kakuzu's beady eyes instantly. Time to gather the cash that was owed to him by Itachi! His gambling had finally paid off.

"That shit sure was easy," Hidan remarked calmly to himself as he saw the helpless Lee being carried off on a stretcher by medical-nin, blood still flying from the defeated taijutsu expert. "Didn't even use my curse. Well, I sure have to thank a certain N. Uzumaki for writing the "Secret Techniques That Would Easily Defeat Any Male" handbook; without it I might've lost. It's fortunate that I bought it just three weeks ago..."

Shikamaru glanced at his bloodstained watch. Three minutes; that was how long the match had taken. Not bad for someone who took on a fully youthed Lee for the first time in his life. The lazy Nara sighed as he watched Kotetsu turn on the scoreboard again. _Troublesome..._

* * *

The rest of the preliminaries sailed rather smoothly, without any weird techniques or untimely interruptions. Deidara won against Tobi, who was forced to forfeit after his senpai ordered him to. Hiruko, being a puppet, was disqualified after he did not come down to the arena within the 1 minute time limit; without a puppeteer, he could not possibly move by himself, so none of the Akatsuki blamed him. Hiruko's loss gave Hinata Hyuga an automatic victory. The match afterwards was far more gory, as it involved some sharp teeth, attacks on the skin, and ripping of some arms. Shikamaru had to stop Zetsu from gobbling up Jugo whole, after the cannibal easily defeated Jugo by devouring the giant's two arms in a record 1.33333 seconds of rapid chomping. The cannibal had even gotten out his immense pewter-made knife, fork and plate for the feast, but he haughtily tucked them away after Shikamaru nervously informed him that cannibalism wasn't allowed. Next, after Zetsu headed up the stairs, licking his lips and picking at his bloodstained teeth with a toothpick, the savaged Jugo was sent to the hospital by medical-nin to get the two bloody stump remnants of his arms repaired, and Kakuzu the bounty hunter went up against TenTen. Kakuzu started to extend his tentacles to choke the girl to death, but TenTen was smart enough to take Neji's earlier advice, and avoided bloodshed. The bounty hunter promptly lost after TenTen offered to pay Kakuzu her allowance for the next three years in exchange for the bounty hunter forfeiting. She had even paid 3000 ryo in advance, and the bounty hunter immediately realized a chance to get rich without hard work; he naturally seized the opportunity, and forfeited. After Kakuzu lost a match in which he should've won in, leaving 3000 ryo richer than he was before, it was the emo-faced Sasuke Uchiha's turn to fight. Since there was no one left for Sasuke to perform the Uchiha heroics on, Sasuke gained a free passage into the third exam, which greatly disappointed the Uchiha; at least he won't have to suffer continuous naggings from pervert Orochimaru for losing in the preliminaries; the pain he had suffered in his private part was receding, but it was still painful; if he had fought with the pain, he might've lost. The winners now stood in a straight line in front of the greatly tired Shikamaru, who had talked more in a day than he had in two months; it obviously tired him out to no end, especially with the ordeal Hidan had caused. They glanced all over the other third-examiners, preparing for the upcoming test in which they would duke it out against each other.

_Hmm...what a drag...Kiba the dog-boy, Kisame the shark-man, Weasel U. the....um...weasel-man, Sakura the beastly woman, Neji the gender-bender, Hidan the pure *censored* guy, Deidara the gender bender number two, Hinata, Zetsu the cannibal, TenTen the panda girl, and Sasuke the emo....an interesting bunch, to say the least. Should be a feast for the daimyo's eyes to enjoy on, and I'll have a whole month off this proctor thing. Can't wait to get back to cloud watching, how I miss thee...._

_Troublesome...my last words of the preliminaries... _Shikamaru cleared his throat. "Well, congratulations for winning the preliminaries. You all have one month before the third exam starts. Enjoy your time off."

The winners of preliminaries promptly left the arena to make preparations for the long month ahead. It wasn't going to be a month without frenzy either....it would surely be an interesting break, to say the least...

* * *

Meanwhile, two figures dressed in Akatsuki cloaks strode towards the Konoha gates side by side. The taller one smiled as he neared the gates and glanced down at his companion, who was taking time in absorbing the scenery around them. It sure was different from the rains of Amegakure.

Pein took in the surroundings of Konoha with definite interest, also envying the weather. Why couldn't they set their base over here? Konohagakure certainly reflected a much more cheery atmosphere than Amegakure's gloomy one. The leader of the Akatsuki walked slowly along the path, keeping an eye out of a certain white-haired pervert; he wouldn't want to meet him here!

"Any signs of Jiraiya?" Pein asked Konan worriedly, surveying the area.

"No."

"Thank god for that. Maybe he's outside of the village somewhere; however I heard that the new Icha Icha movie just came out in Konoha. You know our sensei; he wrote those Icha Icha books himself; he wouldn't want to miss the movies, so I thought he'd be here. Just sayin'."

There was a faint sound of rapid footsteps, and a silver-haired ninja with his left eye covered by his forehead protector briskly strode past the two Akatsuki members, somehow striding out from behind a tall bush. Pein observed the man; he was reading a small orange book, practically burying his nose in its little pages. The man stopped walking all of a sudden and turned his head slowly and surveyed the two strangers carefully before leaning in casually, finally dropping his eyes from the book he was reading. Pein was instantly on his guard, and he reached a hand into his cloak pocket, which held multiple kunais waiting to be used. What did this guy think he is, coming in out of nowhere to ambush two s-class criminals? However, the weird man seemed to recognize what Pein was about to do, judging from his furious expression, and raised a hand in a sign of peace.

"Man, man, chill," the white-haired ninja advised Pein, who gritted his teeth and stopped himself from stabbing a kunai into this weird guy's chest. Better to avoid bloody murder in the wide open streets.

"Did you just say Icha Icha movie...." the white haired ninja demanded. Without warning, without waiting for the startled Pein to reply, the ninja burst out into a bumble of loud words. It was quite clear and loud even though the ninja was wearing a stuffy blue mask over his mouth, covering it. "WHERE WHEN WHY WHAT HOW? WHERE IS IT? WHEN DID IT COME OUT? WHERE IS IT? WHAT'S IT ABOUT? WHY DID THEY MAKE A MOVIE INSTEAD OF ANOTHER BOOK? I, KAKASHI HATAKE, CANNOT MISS AN ICHA ICHA MOVIE! TELL ME WHERE IT IS, ORANGE HAIRED FREAK!"

* * *

It took over thirty minutes to convince Kakashi that Pein just "heard" there was an Icha Icha movie made. Kakashi walked away after finally believing in Pein's statements, once again reading his small orange book, but sporting an extremely disappointed expression on his face. He must be one of Jiraiya's top fans or something; naturally it made him a super-pervert. Pein watched the weird man turn a corner and disappear; what a strange confrontment he had just experienced! The leader reminded himself that Konoha was known as the source for many perverts. His partner Konan had watched the whole thing in amusement; she had never met a fan of Icha Icha before. That was why Jiraiya almost went bankrupt living on booksales when he was still the two Akatsuki members' sensei.

_Oh well. That sure was weird. Hope I never meet that man again. _"Well, well, Konan, I can't wait to see what has become of the boys," Pein mused softly as he and Konan entered the wide open gates into the main street of Konoha. The two guards at the door were fast asleep; security was certainly lax around here, since there were capable ANBU waiting to back the guards up. The guards weren't even needed in the first place, they were simply hired to stand at the gates just to make the entrance to the village seem more "security-wise."

"Me too. I hope ANBU aren't chasing them right now."

"Heh. Well, I hope Hidan didn't resort to using those two techniques he learned from the handbook he bought three weeks ago; if he did, it'll be interesting to look at the amount of blood lost from the others," Pein chuckled as he thought of a naked Hidan performing the Harem Technique. He turned a street, and the two Akatsuki members started to go search for the other Akatsuki members to catch up on the news.

The Akatsuki leader spied a ninja wearing a chunin vest, and hurriedly tapped him on the shoulder heavily. The chunin spun around and saw a towering, orange-haired man with piercings on his nose standing right in front of him.

"I'm not looking for a massage, sorry." the Chunin apologized to Pein, who glanced back weirdly. What the hell was the chunin talking about; he wasn't someone who would massage a total stranger! He was the powerful, godly boss of the Akatsuki, for crying out loud!

"Uh...do you know where the test center for the Chunin Exam is?" Pein asked softly, trying to act polite. In reality, his inner self was urging him to rip the chunin into shreds.

"That depends on which site you're looking for. But anyway, the preliminaries have just concluded, now there's a one month break before the final exam." the chunin stammered, intimidated by Pein's frightening appearance.

"Oh, can you tell me who's passed the preliminaries then?"

The chunin gulped, reached deep into his pocket, and brought out a crumpled piece of paper. Pein swiped it off the Chunin's hands and scanned through it rapidly. After a while Pein handed the paper back.

"Thanks. I gotta go."

Pein headed back to find Konan, while his insides were squirming with increasing rage. He could not believe Tobi, Kakuzu, and Sasori had lost! He could forgive Hiruko, but not the three others; it was total disgrace to lose such an easy exam! The leader fumed and started to think of torture punishment plans for the three as he rounded a corner and found Konan flirting with a particulary good-looking Konoha Jonin. Pein took one look at the jonin, got madder, and grabbed him by the throat with only two long fingers.

"Listen, you bitch," Pein started roughly, brushing off Konan who was trying to intercept Pein's attack. "If you dare touch her again, I will personally fuck you up until you can't feel your balls anymore. Got that?"

"Yes god, yes," the jonin whined like a baby.

"Liar. I don't like your tone." Pein walked over to a nearby dustbin and hurled the jonin inside headfirst. He proceeded to grab the dustbin lid and slam it forcefully onto the dustbin itself; he somehow produced two iron chains out of thin air, and used it to chain up the dustbin tightly. There was no escape for the unfortunate jonin. Groaning sounds of help rang out through the air as the pounding on the bin got louder, but Pein merely chuckled and walked away, leaving the jonin trapped in the bin forever. He was going to have to live with smelly trash for the rest of his life, but at least he wouldn't starve to death; there were dirty crap inside the dustbin, enough for the jonin to feast on. Pein was considerate of his opponents.

"I'm in HELL! THIS CRAP IS FROM HELL!" the jonin screamed loudly, as he tasted some of the scraps in the dustbin.

With the jonin trapped, the leader now confronted Konan. He walked up to her menacingly, cracking his knuckles loudly; however the female Akatsuki member did not even flinch. She knew Pein would never hurt her no matter what. Pein frowned slightly and started lecturing Konan. "Now, Konan, I can't believe you were cheating on me. Seriously. You don't even have protection!"

Konan gestured at a nearby shop; Pein followed her gaze and saw a stall filled with condoms, both used and brand new. "Oh. All right then."

"Don't worry, Pein, I won't cheat on you. It's just that you never went into the same bed with me..." Konan's large eyes turned into "puppy" ones as she glanced longingly at the disgusted Pein.

"Whatever. Let's just find those guys first, I don't know where~" Pein's sentence was interrupted by a sudden wave of swear words. He instantly recognized the voice, knew it was Hidan's dirty mouth, and headed towards it, with Konan following behind, slightly depressed that Pein still refused to play dirty. She knew the leader could not set a bad example for his subordinates; if he had agreed to do it with Konan, the others would've found out, and women would have gotten raped left and right, probably by Hidan himself.

"Guess you can't win all the time...at least I'm better off than those guys," Konan muttered to herself as she followed Pein towards Hidan, who was trying to force a bakery seller to give him his whole cake-filled stall as payment for living. The other Akatsuki members were standing behind Hidan, apparently oblivious of Pein's arrival.

"Kakuzu....Sasori....Tobi......beware.....it'll be three weeks of toilet scrubbing for you..." Pein whispered to himself as he made his grand appearance.

* * *

**A/N: **Prelims over at last! The month-long break in between the prelims and third test won't be filled with training only, by the way....

Sorry for such a short chapter, but I was on a tight schedule. Anyway, I'll update soon. I'll probably have 2-3 chapters about the events happening in the month before the third test.

R&R please! Thank you!


	11. Akatsuki Troubles Pt 1

**Authors Note: **Barely had any time to update. I seriously h8 exams. Lol :P

* * *

The red-haired puppet walked forward, intent on joining the fun, cranking slightly as he did and bending over as he almost tripped over his weak legs. He cursed himself for his stupidity, and lifted his head. Sasori instantly wished he hadn't; why had he fallen in THIS direction?

The vague sound of crackling wood could be heard all over the place as Sasori lifted his bored, half-closed eyelids and promptly shot them open, spying two monstrous beasts coming towards them. Well, not monstrous by size, but by pure _anger._ The next second, a steadily-getting-worried Sasori couldn't help but chatter his teeth stupidly, not sure of his next move; the sight was just too stupefying. Pein, leader of the Akatsuki, torturer of the weak, merciless villain, conspiracy starter, long-lived avenger, and so-called pacifist was striding steadily towards the large bakery stall in which the Akatsuki members were assembled in front of, mocking and taunting the poor stall owner and his even more unfortunate young assistants, who were getting their money ripped off by a delighted Kakuzu. Sasori enviously glanced at his oblivious comrades in jealously from the corner of his eye, wishing he hadn't noticed his two tough superiors; now his mind was jumping to the wrong conclusions, instead of more literal ones; he shouldn't have cared, but he had to, since he failed the Chunin Exam preliminaries to a mere girl. That girl looked like any everyday slut, but instead she hid her hidden potential of packing immense-powered punches. Sasori was living proof of that; his stomach still bore a large hole, enough to kill any normal human being. Thankfully being a self-converted human puppet, Sasori did not worry since he had no use for worthless, liquid blood; a hole was any hole, plus it allowed wind to enter his hollow body, which felt quite comfortable indeed. Plus he did not have to worry about excruciating pain since his body felt nothing, absolutely nothing, even if a streamroller crushed him fully, he would have slept through it, except his body would be shattered into flat boards. At any rate, poor Sasori now had a problem to deal with: Pein and Konan. He grimaced slightly as he noticed Pein narrow his wicked eyes; those slanting pupils made the orange haired leader intimidating. He looked like someone who had just finished dealing with love trouble; perhaps he actually did. Sasori muffled a laugh as he thought of Pein walking with a girlfriend; the whole thing was effing impossible. However he couldn't laugh in front of his teammates since he informed them he owned absolutely zero emotions; he actually kept some after converting himself into a human puppet; emotions such as love was useless, but humor was certainly significant since it provided various breaks during rests to enjoy. Plus, if you laughed in front of a cranky Pein, he would beat the living shit out of your body; again, Sasori did not own any living shit in his body, so he was safe. Now, he bent slightly down, crouching behind a particularly fat-assed man to hide his thinking self from Pein's direct view...he needed to think fast.

Should he make a run for it, or just stay and try to use Minato's deathly fart to repel Pein? Probably not since Pein owned the farts of both Hashirama and Tobirama Senju, the 1st and 2nd Hokages, respectively. He made up his mind; escaping was the right thing to do, and he had to get the hell outta here right now; he couldn't betray his comrades either, but the others would fare well, with the exception of two individuals. One of them was urging his senpai to bomb the whole shop, while the other was busy stuffing cash into a back pocket, now attempting to offer a rusty racecar for the simple price of 1000 ryo. The assistants, as stupid as they were, actually accepted the deal, and the bounty hunter's eyes flashed in superb delight as he got richer and richer. Sasori shook his head grimly as he forced himself upright, and walked quickly towards his fellow comrades. An-amused looking Hidan was spitting swear words at the stall owner while stabbing various pastries with his merciless scythe. Just as Sasori fell down, his weak wooden knees failing to support him, five burly guys walked past, pointing at an Icha-Icha shop in happiness; they also happened to block Pein and Konan's path quite incidentally. Sasori sighed in relief; those guys bought him time without knowing it; he threw himself up this time instead of staggering up. He had a bad feeling even so.

* * *

Sasori fell down three times after that. After cursing his body for the fifth time, he noticed that Pein and Konan were walking towards him and the other Akatsuki members faster than normal; the sounds of their grass sandals bellowed loudly through the gravel pavement. Now even his "Pest" detector, installed on his left knee, was beeping and flashing continuously; that meant a pest was coming rapidly towards them. Sasori raised his head and glanced forward just as Pein pushed his way roughly through the bustling Konoha crowd, his Rinnegan eyes spiraling furiously. The puppet master instantly jumped to the right conclusion due to his brain; Pein was out to get him for failing the Chunin Exams when he should've easily won it. That meant Kakuzu and Tobi are in trouble as well, because they also failed by losing in the preliminaries! Sasori trembled slightly, but managed to calm himself down, and he grabbed Kakuzu and Tobi by their long sleeves, running away into an alley while dragging the two of them. Pein made his way through the crowd and just got past a particularly fat woman's ass before he scanned the Akatsuki members and noticed that the three in question were missing. The leader clenched his fist tightly and seemed to radiate dark energy; black waves of evilness seemed to surround Pein, reflecting his anger. _When I get you three, Sasori, Kakuzu, and Tobi, you will pay. PAY! _Pein breathed heavily and settled down before he turned to address the remaining members of Akatsuki; he gasped when he saw that they weren't there. All that was left of the raided bakery stall was the owner, who was lying unconscious on the ground with his hair sheared off by Hidan's sharp scythe. The members noticed Pein and Konan right after Sasori, Kakuzu and Tobi left, exchanged nervous glances with each other, and promptly gathered themselves and got the hell out of here. They had also escaped the extreme tightness of Pein's clutches! The leader changed his mind abruptly as he walked back to rejoin Konan, breathing in outrage with his mind full of torture plans. _When I get ALL of you, you will pay!_

At the moment though, Pein had something else to worry about. What Konan told him the next instant revealed the truth. She had just been asked out by a Konoha Jonin! As Pein heard her rapid words, he spun around and spied a man speeding away into the crowd, blending into the bustling Konoha villagers moments later; Pein lost track of the man by then. He made a hurried mental note to track down the damn guy and kick his ass; currently, his powerful brain had finished calculating all troubles, and completed piling up a schedule of tracking down both the man and the Akatsuki. This was going to be a long, long day. He had come to watch the final stage of the exam; he did not plan on playing as a policeman, catching crime and fixing wrongdoings. What the hell of a mess did he get himself into? Pein ripped at his spiky hair and his Rinnegan eyes flashed with frustration. A moment ago everything was fine and good, a peaceful day; now things were as messy as a rumbling thunderstorm!

First things first, he had to fix Konan's condition, but he certainly never regarded himself as a brainless workaholic.

"Why the hell did you accept his offer?" the foul-mooded Pein demanded angrily, glaring at a calm Konan with rage and eyeing her stupid, brainless mouth; why couldn't she think before speaking? "I've got enough problems to worry about currently with finding my subordinates; now you had to cause me extra time by accepting a random person's request for a date! Woe is me!"

"Too bad." Konan replied coldly, glancing down at the ground, determined to look away. Pein regarded his shorter companion for a second silently with piercing eyes which seemed to drive into Konan's body. Something alerted Konan, and she looked up to see Pein's actions. He continued staring intently, causing Konan to momentarily blush slightly; she quickly regained her normal posture and glared back at Pein with defiance; any minute now, Pein thought Konan would pummel him in the crotch for glancing like a pervert at her body. He would've accepted the punch wordlessly as it meant she would touch him. Pein, however, just proceeded to continue the staring match; neither was giving up. Her smooth blue hair, which had grown recently and now trailed down to her shoulders, looked particularly good on such a busy day in which Pein had met a weird Icha Icha loving Jonin named Kakashi Hatake, failed to capture the three failures, and failed to retrieve his subordinates. Looking at the hair made him feel better than being a self-claimed God; that concept just angered Pein further, driving him away from his admiring.

"I'll get him, don't you worry," Pein retorted nastily, thumping his head with a curled up fist to try remember Konan's date's appearance. He had promptly forgot what the Konoha Jonin looked like, in the mess of the situation. Now how was he going to track down the criminal in question? He needed the man's appearance, for god's sake!

Pein glared at Konan with deep hatred, trying to keep himself from casting a Shinra Tensei on his partner in anger. Well, actually, not exactly hatred, because the leader could not make himself hate the only woman of Akatsuki. He just couldn't, no matter how hard he tried. So all he managed was a slight grimace; his Rinnegan eyes, however, perfectly reflected the Akatsuki leader's current temper, which was extremely short. He was going to track down that fucking man with all his might, even if it meant following him all the way to Sunagakure, which was very far from Konoha. It just showed Pein's determination for his woman; he wasn't going to let any random guy mess with his possessions. If Konan thought he was a lovesick puppy only caring for a woman to own, he didn't give a freaking damn.

"Jesus. Uh, fine, when are you going to meet him for this date?" Pein asked almost politely, trying another tactic in order to absorb more information. Instead of being rough and direct, he was asking the question like if he did not plan to have any involvement in the matter.

"Right now." Konan's words struck Pein like thunder. His whole world seemed to spin out of control. Now he had a new goal set up; getting rid of war and establishing eternal peace over the shinobi universe had just slipped helplessly into second place of Pein's to-do list. The leader clenched his fists, a new No.1 to-do clear in front of him; this one could not fail. His whole face turned red and steam literally erupted from his pierced ears as a sign of his pissed-offness. How dare Konan, it was unforgivable. He needed time to make preparations for a assassination operation, but time was of valuable essence here. Pein rubbed his temples in an attempt to clear his mind, but failed, so he merely turned to Konan with a few words for the female Akatsuki member to absorb.

"Whatever! I'll get him for this! Just try to enjoy your date...while you can..." Pein growled haughtily, not bothering to hide his increasing rage. With a curse, he vanished in a wave of rippling flames, and disappeared from the spot, leaving Konan wondering if all hell would break lose in the next few hours. Little had survived Pein's anger when he targeted a victim; they never had the chance to retaliate. That probably means that her date was going to die sometime or another. What a troublesome partner she was paired with; she had no choice as Pein was the leader who decided all decisions. Konan shook her head and walked away to meet her date at the Ichiraku Ramen Stand; he had promised to buy her an unlimited amount of Ramen as long as she went on a date with him. She smiled slightly; men were easy to fool.

* * *

"I'll kick your ass...don't worry..." Pein vowed in a deep voice, his Rinnegan eyes expanding dangerously. This was a sign of even more dangerous events to come. He suddenly spied a whistling Konoha Jonin strolling down the street towards him without a waist pouch clipped on his waist; it meant he had no metal weapons with him, which would make things much easier to complete. Pein blinked in surprise at his good timing, but he couldn't help thanking God, including Jashin-sama, for giving him a reliable source. The leader coughed quietly and leapt towards the stunned Jonin, who attempted to run away and tripped over his shoelace. Those 'sneakers', as new inventions, were hard things to use!

* * *

Meanwhile...

Kakuzu, Sasori and Tobi, the three Akatsuki flunkers, were calmly strolling down a busy street, safe from the Rinnegan eyes of the ever-watching Pein-sama. Today was a bright day in Konoha and it seemed like every villager was out in the sun instead of staying home like a homesick geek; perhaps the sun was celebrating the three Akatsuki's defeat and Pein's sudden arrival. Very surprising, to say the least.

Sasori sighed in relief, checking a special GPS system embedded on his left elbow every once in a while to check if Pein wasn't close on their trail. He stared at the little diagrams and numbers, and made some quick calculations. Pein wasn't coming anytime soon; in fact he was heading for somewhere else. "Thankfully I noticed Pein coming just now. Never knew he's someone who would come to watch his underlings; if I didn't notice him, who knows what would've happened to us. We would probably be stuck at a kiddies' summer camp working as damn counselors, eh?"

Kakuzu shuddered at the very thought; working without pay was definitely horrid.

"Tobi is a good boy! Tobi needn't run from Pein-sama!"

"He ain't a sama to you, Tobi. I'm your sama." Sasori explained triumphantly, raising two index fingers into the air for his victory pose, while all the time causing Tobi to scratch his head in total confusion. Sasori gave up trying to convince Tobi to become a puppet worshipper; the idiots were becoming more and more difficult to welcome into the art of puppetry and eternal life. Sasori couldn't blame Tobi, he was probably brainwashed by Pein, who was known for his notorious torturing methods, such as forcing a scared Deidara to watch hardcore hentai, censored edition, for fifty hours straight a few weeks before. That was how Deidara developed an annoying habit for saying "un" at the end of each and every one of his sentences, sentence fragments, and run-on sentences; he used to say "yeah", but after watching such inappropriate scenes, he forgot how to say a four-letter word like "yeah."

"I'm hungry! Aren't you hungry?" Kakuzu moaned impatiently, glancing around with his dark eyes for a place to eat. In truth, he already had a place to eat firmly stuck in his mind, and the place that he fell in love with was the Ichiraku Ramen Stand; ever since the fateful day when Itachi took him there to eat before the Forest of Death, the greedy bounty hunter had felt some sort of connection to those slurpy, long ramen. The feel of gripping the wooden chopsticks tightly, the absorbing aroma rising up from the welcoming bowl set on the table, drool slipping unnoticed from your mouth as you glance with passion at the noodles in front of you...just staring at a bowl of ramen made Kakuzu cry in thankfulness. Ramen was now officially his second most favorite thing in the whole wide world, second only to the glittering, very-countable CASH. No matter how hard Kakuzu tried, money was his life; it was probably his soul mate, even though money technically isn't a human, it still gave Kakuzu all he desired. He lived for money, and for ramen, without those two special items, Kakuzu would suicide on the spot without a single second of hesitation. His rough lips had gotten quite rusty, stuck behind that smelly, damp mask for so long; he needed ramen to calm things down and bless his desiring mouth with greatness. Kakuzu was stuck in a reverie about ramen in which he went to a large ramen company and robbed the whole place free of food. Drool began filling up behind his mask, and pretty soon the whole mask was starting to get damp, dripping small droplets of saliva at the same time onto the ground. Nearby Konoha villagers hurried past Kakuzu, occassionally turning their heads to glance with wonder at the bounty hunter. He looked out of place, bumping into several people simply because he was still stuck helplessly inside his blissful, solitude reverie. Ramen could conjure such greatness, he never knew that.

"What the hell, watch where yer' goin'!" a villager yelled, pissed off, as Kakuzu walked forwards absentmindedly, bowling the villager over effortlessly. Kakuzu made no reply and merely stepped on the villager's face heavily, crushing the nose in half for good measure, before continuing his stroll. As the poor villager lay on the ground screaming and clutching all that's left of his pitiful nose in pain, Kakuzu followed Sasori and Tobi through the crowd of people; that had been Kakuzu's 16th bumped villager. So far the unfortunate fellas had either received a broken nose, a black eye, knocked-out teeth, or a combination of all three; it certainly was a generous yet free gift from a greedy person like Kakuzu himself. The bounty hunter was quite proud of himself; he finally thought about others for a bit instead of merely himself, ramen, and glittering cash.

Kakuzu hurried past staring villagers as his 17th victim collapsed, his straight, ridged nose completely caved into the center of his face. It certainly was a gruesome sight, so Kakuzu wasn't staying around for the consequences. Subsequently, five animal-masked ANBU shinobis jumped down from a nearby building, starting to draw their katanas. Kakuzu, Sasori, and Tobi glanced at the ANBU in surprise, who probably in turn glanced back from behind their grotesque masks; the three Akatsuki members made a run for it, dashing and pushing their way roughly through the crowd of bystanders, who were either bowled over and suffered a gift from Kakuzu, or knocked flying like a rapidly shot missile into a nearby building. The ANBU members recovered quickly and sheathed their katanas before running after the escaping trio. However they were too late as the diversion had given Kakuzu, Sasori and Tobi enough time to disappear from the scene of chaos. Well, only the clumsy Tobi was left behind, tripping over the untied shoelace of some random person watching the scene. He collapsed heavily onto the street ground, and looked up to see an ANBU member leaping at him with his sharp katana held high, glinting the bright rays of the sun on the wicked blade. Plus it was coming straight down! Tobi screamed in absolute terror, jumped up like a shocked hedgehog, and started running again.

A few minutes later Tobi managed to give the pursuing ANBU member the slip by yelling that there was a monstrous UFO with seven-colored rays rapidly descending from the village with green suited, five-headed green aliens sprouting from a circular door on the high-tech roof equipped with six billion tommy guns. The ANBU member believed Tobi, looked at the sky, saw nothing interesting except for a fluttering sparrow, turned back, saw no one in front of him, and promptly crumpled onto the ground, crying in disappointment that he had lost his target and missed the UFO at the same time. Life couldn't be more terrible than this particular event, could it? The ANBU member clutched his head, which had suddenly started to rattle violently, sending painful jolts through his whole body; he started to turn pale green from exhaustion. Perhaps this was the orange masked guy's technique or something. Nevetheless the ANBU member collapsed heavily, his eyes rolling around in their tired sockets, seeing strange objects such as five-headed green aliens in front of him. Wait...green aliens levitating above his injured ass, gripping a fully loaded tommy gun, pointing it at his chest? The ANBU member's face promptly transformed into a vile shade of pinkish-purple mixture as a sense of weirdness washed over his body; what in the world was going on?

Meanwhile, Tobi found Kakuzu and Sasori running along a tight alley, their faces twisted in sour expressions, and followed them into likely exile and hideout from the ANBU force. They were now double-missing-nins, having deserted _two _villages as of now; what a bright record it was. In truth Tobi was quite glad; this was the life of a vagabond, and he never expected it to be full of twists and turns, not to mention fun and games! This WAS the ultimate life! Tobi whistled cheerfully as he followed Kakuzu and Sasori in climbing into an open-covered manhole entrance; the grotesque smell overtook the three of them, and noises of swearing and spitting were heard quite clearly, until Sasori found out and latched the cover on the entrance. It blocked out all signs of noise, so even if the smell was horrible, it provided a safe hiding spot. No one would think of looking in such a dirty place.

Outside, the furious ANBU captain of the unit cursed angrily, realized that the three weirdos could be anywhere in the village causing mischief, and commanded his men to spread out with a new mission in their minds: locate the three and promptly arrest them. To make matters worse one of his men was mentally destroyed, and was currently crying that the UFO had disappeared before he could take a picture of the glorious spaceship. Suspicious bullet marks were all over his bloodstained body, with an even more suspicious ten-toed footprint embedded on the ANBU member's crushed cheek.

"What a really great day," the ANBU captain mused tiredly, rubbing his suddenly sore temples and making his way towards a looming wooden ladder, which was leaned against a roof with exact accuracy; that angle surely meant not falling down all of a sudden and crushing battalions of innocent villagers. Another member of his unit suddenly appeared out of nowhere and started running with all his speed towards the captain, not watching where he was going. The captain sighed and glanced up at the likely reporter, until he caught sight of the ladder's location. Uh-oh.

"Watch out, you're gonna crash~" the ANBU captain croaked hurriedly, reaching out a rapid hand. He didn't finish.

The ANBU member crashed into the ladder and collapsed instantly as the ladder crushed several unfortunate villagers. It also smacked the ANBU captain on the head, and he fell down, a big bruise sprouting from the top of his white hood. It was painful, and he lay there groaning in fake agony, hoping to attract the attention of beautiful healer-nin. None came after a few minutes, so he decided to give up, rescuing his sore throat.

All in all, now there were two seperate units trying to find the three escapers: Pein, and the five-man ANBU unit. It was only a matter of time, but the time isn't specified, so it could take more than forever to find the three in such a large, bustling village in which every single person was out in the sunshine doing something either pointless or useful. The ANBU captain sighed, scratching at his itchy mask as he jumped onto the roof of a slanted building; too bad his last off day was six long years ago, he still missed the glorious day itself; sleeping in until 5:00 in the afternoon was pure greatness. Now, instead of lying comfortably in a soft bed, he was stuck on a possibly-endless wild goose chase for three weird cloaked guys.

* * *

Sasuke Uchiha left the hospital, which was currently experiencing the troublesome matter of housing big armless Jugo and broken-hands Suigetsu. To make matters worse, the attendants forced Sasuke to pay for his teammates' housing costs since he was the only one still in good health. Now, as Sasuke strolled angrily out of the hospital, he noted that his pockets felt exceptionally light, freed from the torture of housing heavy money. What a freaking waste, he could have sent the money to donation instead of using it heal his worthless teammates; donation in Sasuke's vocabulary meant donating cash to HIMSELF, since he was someone in need....OF POWER, HATRED, and...CASH, which was prominent in acquiring power. After all Orochimaru the Snake Sannin had charged a housing fee of 1000 Ryo per year; it freaking wiped off Sasuke's expenses list completely and tidily. Sasuke sat down on a wooden bench, cupping his chin in his hands, feeling extremely bored and frustrated at the same time. He shot an evil glare at a nearby blue bird just for the heck of it, but it stood there innocently, as if standing up against the mighty Uchiha. Before Sasuke knew what was happening, he did not have time to react as the bird dived forward with its wings outspread, pecking Sasuke's cheek piercingly in the process. Sasuke yelped slightly as the bird took off with the speed of a blasting rocket, escaping likely death. Sasuke propelled himself off the bench in a valiant effort to grasp the bird and pull it apart piece by piece, but all he achieved was collapsing onto the grass after losing gravity quickly; his whole face was bruised with slight cuts, and fires of anger glowed in his usually onyx eyes, lighting them with the majesty of evil. Sasuke sat there panting, growing more pissed with every passing second; he decided that he was going to attack the next person who passed him with every weapon in his arsenal. Just for fun, just to spill out the frustration. What a great solution; Sasuke felt proud of himself as he leaned back softly against the bench, rubbing his cheeks tenderly while anticipating the next arrival....

* * *

Itachi turned and walked into a deserted street near Konoha's hospital, where the crew were working overtime because of the new wave of injured patients from the Chunin Exams preliminaries, including a giant fatso with severed arms.

"Where are you going, 'Tachi?" Kisame asked, a bit surprised that Itachi was walking towards Konoha's Hospital. Was he visiting a patient or some injured friend? As far as the shark-nin knew, Itachi had no friends in Konoha; he only had people who hated him for massacring the proud Uchiha clan single-handedly, excluding his pathetic excuse of a gangster-like brother. Itachi had described Sasuke Uchiha well in concrete details, and from what Kisame could gather, Sasuke was nothing but a hatred-lacking brat.

"I don't know yet. Destiny, however, directs me to walk along this path." Itachi walked along the gravel pavement towards the hospital, with Kisame following obediently, swinging Samehada over his shoulder to keep it out of the way. Sometimes having a gigantic sword could prove inconvenient.

* * *

His sharp ears caught sound the footsteps were making against the ground, even though they were still yards away from coming close. "Someone's coming...gotta prepare Chidori...hurry," Sasuke sneered to himself, excited that he was going to commit murder right on the spot. Sometimes life was just full of surprises, and surprises could be good ones. He performed some rapid hand seals and sparkling lightning energy started to surround his right hand as the red Sharingan revealed itself, appearing in Sasuke's wide eyeballs, replacing the onyx color. He grinned like a crazed drunkard, stomping his foot impatiently on the ground, waiting for the stupid arrival; Sasuke was in full combat mode, or rather, full massacre mode. Now all he required was the unfortunate and idiotic victim for him to plunge his anger into. Sasuke crawled behind a bush to add suspense to the coming ambush, licking his dry lips in steadily increasing excitement.

* * *

Itachi suddenly stopped, bending down to pick up the small jar of nail paint that he had dropped one second ago.

* * *

The Akatsuki member grasped the small nail paint jar with two fingers and started to bring it up, but stopped quickly as he noticed a weird sight in front. Something wasn't right; the alerted Uchiha surveyed the area curiously for any signs of attackers or enemies. Tall trees sprouted from nearby grass, and battalions of bushy bushes loomed up from where they were planted at, perfect for an attacker to hide in. Itachi's eyes narrowed on instant reaction, and he leaned in to survey the bushes more carefully; one of them was slightly bulging, with a twitching finger poking out. Sure enough, in the next nano-second, a raven-haired, Sharingan-eyed boy leapt out from behind the bush in question, and extended an arm, throwing forward a sparkling Chidori technique with all his might while hollering loudly through open lips: "DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" The hooded man, who was bent over something, instantly lifted his head, and a short gasp rose from tight lips. Sasuke's crazed eyes widened, and promptly narrowed as he clearly saw nothing but air in front of him. His whole face went pale as he realized what was about to happen; he's got to prevent the coming collision by flying! Too bad he didn't learn how to use his invisible wings; Orochimaru had taught him on his very first lesson that the Uchiha had wings constructed out of paper fans attatched to their backs, invisible to the naked eye. It seemed like Sasuke's eyes, even though Sharingan-type, were very much naked; he let out a scream and rose a hand quickly towards his pants, in order to prevent damage to his private part. It had suffered enough back in the Forest of Death, and yet it still urined for the Uchiha. Sasuke was sure he owed the private part something.

After a few seconds, Sasukee promptly smashed painfully onto the ground as he hit no one; the pained Uchiha struggled to roll over, but his eyes rolled in their sockets until they vanished completely. Sasuke groaned tiredly, blood spurting out from various cuts placed all over his torn clothes; falling unconscious as Chidori stopped flickering on his hand, disappearing into wisps. Who'd know a fall could've caused such grievious damage to a stunned shinobi.

* * *

_Fuck...speak of the devil! It's foolish little brother Sasuke! _Itachi thought numbly, tucking the nail paint jar into a small pocket on his black cloak. He could not possibly believe his eyes....Sasuke had tried to ambush and kill him? Was it possible that Sasuke knew his identity, and had waited here for revenge? Knowing Uchiha prodigies' big brains, it was extremely likely; thank god that Itachi had stopped an inch from death due to the jar of nail paint falling. He proceeded to grab out the small jar and hug it to his chest with all the might in his arms; it was his savior, all because of dropping!

Kisame lumbered up, leaning heavily on Samehada. He had missed the short fight a while ago. "Err...'Tachi, you OK? Hey, what the, isn't that your bro there...did he just try to KILL you?"

An awkward silence followed. Itachi made a mental note not to make his foolish brother seem like a mass murderer who'd kill on the spot without pure consideration. He decided to answer his partner's awkward question with an awkward answer; he could not make his clan seem like a murder-loving group of people. After all he had massacred his whole clan years ago with only one single katana; if he stated Sasuke had tried to kill him with a single Chidori, people would start spreading rumors that the Uchiha absolutely adored killing like Jashinists. Naturally Itachi found himself saying a safe, "Maybe, maybe not."

"Aren't YOU gonna kill him?" Kisame inquired roughly, looking at Itachi strangely; it normally does not take the Uchiha to answer a simple question with such a long period of hesitation.

"Not yet, it seems like his hatred meter isn't max yet...we gotta wait till he's reached his potential. Destiny clearly states that foolish Sasuke here will somehow slay the great snake Orochimaru...we can't murder him just yet, or the consequences will be dire. Take him to the hospital, Kisame." He wasn't glad that his brother had tried to kill him, but his brother did not know he killed the Uchiha clan until Itachi personally told Sasuke the grand news. It was square, so Itachi felt that he had to help his poor brother; he hadn't really looked forward, or even thought about, the day when he would clash with Sasuke in an all-out duel. For now it was better to play it safe.

"Fine...but you're paying for his stay."

Kisame's reply was much more unsuggestive now, full of dislike at the idea, but he had to obey his best friend. Sighing, the shark nin slung Sasuke's limp form over his shoulder like he was a bag of wet rags, and vanished in rippling liquid water, heading for the hospital. Itachi just stared thoughtfully after them, rubbing a hand over his black hood, wondering whether it was a good idea after all to come back to Konoha after all. It was definitely troublesome as he had to wear his hot, humid hood the whole time; if he had even taken it off for one split second, hordes of ANBU would've come running at him, vowing to avenge the Uchiha clan. Something weird suddenly occured in the elder Uchiha's mind as he started to walk away from the place where he almost got pierced by a full-steamed Chidori. _It seems like we're destined to meet yet again, Sasuke...too bad we're both male and brothers. You would've made a nice match as a soulmate._

* * *

A 6 foot 3 tall body slammed onto the ground with the force of a rampaging elephant getting shot through by a stealthy hunter, while another taller man stood over the motionless Jonin with the attributes of a powerful, reckoning leader. Evilness and waves of darkness radiated from the orange-haired man's body, and it greatly intimidated the downed Jonin. No one else was in the street where the fight was happening; it was clearly abandoned, and the barren surroundings suited the orange-haired man's wicked intentions perfectly.

"Bastard!" Pein insulted grouchily as he crouched down, slamming another fist into the poor man's half-distorted face with powerful impact; the punch of fury knocked out half of the man's perfect white teeth. Now it wasn't so perfect as it was missing the top row completely, with blood seeping through, making his once handsome face seem like a match to Frankenstein's ugly one. He tried to stand up, but Pein whacked him heavily on the brains, sending the Jonin falling down again, breathing weakly. His sight was wavering from loss of blood. "Speak!"

He still had to conduct his duty even in a dire situation like this. "Never..." the Konoha Jonin managed to reply in vain, earning a kick in the balls. Ruby red blood flew out from the Jonin's wide opened mouth as his weakening hands flew like flying black crows towards the bottom of his pants; he did not get a chance to protect his private parts or retaliate for the kick, instead Pein's wicked grin widened as the grass sandal came crashing down again at fast speed, this time holding the force of a powerful sledgehammer. The Jonin felt the bones in his right hand crumple like defenseless twigs; the pain was excruciating and he let out a torturing scream, causing Pein to almost crash to the ground, his eardrums ringing and buzzing at the piercing sound wave. The Jonin himself felt much worse than the shaky-headed Pein, still recovering from the loud screaming; with bones snapped in his fingers, he could not possibly cast any notable Jutsus or simple hand seals.

"Just speak, will you, I haven't got all day. Stop screaming, and speak." Pein snapped sternly, spitting in the Jonin's watering, bloodshot eyeballs and placing a rough knee sinking into his soft guts for extra measure. Pein was excellent at torturing innocent shinobi; it was his specialty, the trait which earned him leader of Akatsuki. He absolutely loved, even ADORED torturing, almost as much as ending the grief and gory of full out war and....he couldn't say her name just this moment, it made him too angry and pissed.

A sharp-nailed finger stabbed slightly into the Jonin's thin neck, drawing out a thin line of blood. Just seeing his own life source made the Jonin feel sick; he wanted to puke, but was afraid it'll enrage his torturer even more. Pein started to draw a kunai from his pouch; the Jonin, although wounded badly, still caught sight of glinting metal, and instantly froze on the spot, his brain calculating various scenarios which might happen. The wounded Jonin quit screaming as his voice started to waver weirdly; the scream died into a mere gasp. As Pein started to stab down with the deadly tip of the kunai, the Jonin's eyes widened, and he started to speak for the sake of saving his life; the chances of him survivng this encounter was slim, but at least it was a good try. Inserting the kunai back in his pouch swiftly, Pein grinned from ear to ear, licking his dry lips in anticipation, as he was finally going to receive what he wanted to hear: information about Konan's current date. He leaned in, cupping an impatient hand to his ear, as the Jonin began to croak out barely hearable words with all that's left of his once booming voice...

"So...uh...well, as you can see, he hit on your woman, and because of his looks he managed to win her heart. You wanted to know his appearance and location, I've got them all right here..." the Jonin started.

* * *

After escaping and beating up ANBU members, the three refugees found refuge at a small run-down hotel at the edge of Konohagakure. It wasn't a good place, it was far from hospitable since it was so shabby and smelled of lice, but it would do for a nice hideout. After all it offered shelter, at least, and the money wasn't expensive, so Kakuzu had allowed his companions to stay here. Now greedy Kakuzu himself was negotiating a deal with a hotel manager and Tobi was scratching at several bloody cuts littered across his pride and joy: the black suit, when Sasori suddenly noticed something horrible. He was the sort of person who surveyed the areas around and around with vigilance; it was an old habit which helped save his life from likely ambushers many many countless times, but he wished it would stop now. _Why me? Why am I the first one to notice HIM? ALWAYS!_

Sasori tapped Kakuzu on the shoulder heavily, and the bounty hunter spun around annoyed only to catch sight of Sasori's eyeball directions; they were locked on Pein himself, who was standing still, eyes flashing with murderous intent. Sasori glanced worriedly at the white-faced Kakuzu, waiting for the bounty hunter to make the first move. Tobi was oblivious of the newcomer; rather he was still fretting about how to stitch his black suit, which made him look handsome in the eyes of hot chicks.

It took a moment's thought for Kakuzu to make a split second decision; he was going to run for his life, but he wasn't leaving without extra income either. "Fuck...it's the leader himself," Kakuzu swore softly, quickly swiping the hotel manager's cash from his pocket and taking off running, with Sasori and Tobi on his tails. Pein vanished in a flash and appeared instantly in front of Kakuzu, who hurriedly stopped, tucking the cash into his pocket for safekeeping. The hotel manager didn't bother chasing after the bounty hunter as he knew from their looks that they were missing-nin on the run; it wasn't safe for an average person to deal with notorious criminals capable of comitting murder easily.

"Don't kill us! Please! Or, in my case, don't dismantle my puppet body!" pleaded a wide-eyed Sasori, who knelt down and bowed to Pein like he was god. Well, technically, Pein called himself god. It took him 19 years just to convert his human body into a puppet one; if it got dismantled, who'd do it for him? With a broken body certainly not himself, and there weren't any good puppeteers in the world besides himself, the very best of the lot. Sasori pondered whether to activate Minato's fart, but decided against it again when he reminded himself of Pein's secret weapons. All he could do was continue bowing, sweat flying down his puppet body. How strange.

"Don't kill me either! I still have fifty banks to hit on!" Kakuzu moaned, tucking his Hit List into the very back pocket so Pein could not see the parchment. "Take my cash if you want; just let me live, leader-sama!" Tears started to appear in Kakuzu's eyes as he thought about the horrid thought of him giving away hard-to-acquire money; the liquid started to dribble down as the bounty hunter almost burst into tears right there. Money was too good to part with so hurriedly.

Tobi just nodded numbly, rubbing his spiky hair like he wasn't sure what was happening. He merely noticed his two superiors staring with horror at Pein, and followed suit, although no one could actually determine his expression since he covered his face entirely with an orange mask. It wasn't actually needed, but he had to copy his senpais, or he might get degraded in ranks, which he didn't want.

Pein ignored their pleas since he had a proposition for them, his subordinates. "Now, now, calm down. I won't kill you on one condition. You have to help me with something....well.....PERSONAL. Here's what you have to do...."

"We'll do anything, just give me a rise in paycheck!" Kakuzu roared enthusiastically, forgetting his previous moment of cowardiness.

"I want 5 AK-47s and 10 Tommy Guns embedded in my weapons slot!"

"A NEW BLACK SUIT PLEASE, FOR A GOOD BOY LIKE ME!"

"All those can be discussed later. Well if you want to live....here's what's going on....and don't fail me...." Pein warned dangerously as he began to explain in detail about the crisis.

* * *

A few streets away, a Jonin dressed in a handsome tuxedo strolled down the sidewalk, waiting to meet his blue-haired date...he just didn't know what was in store for him. Three Akatsuki-cloaked figures stood on a high roof, staring down at their target...

* * *

**A/N: Kind of rushed, but oh well. Because of stupid exams and projects I haven't got a lot of time to update, so I apologize. Ill get the next chapter up soon, and it'll contain more action. Probably 2 more chapters before the 3rd Phase of the Chunin Exam...**

**R&R! **


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